Speak Up — Because We Know What We're Talking About
How to lead conversations, make your point, and be heard without compromise.
At 61, I speak differently than I did at 41. Not louder, not more aggressively, but with a kind of authority that took decades to develop and even longer to trust. This shift isn't unique to me — it's part of a broader transformation happening as women over 50 begin to recognise that our voices carry something irreplaceable: the weight of lived experience.
Yet for most of our lives, we've been conditioned to diminish that very experience. We've learned to apologise before speaking, to soften our expertise with disclaimers, and to defer to voices that sound more confident even when they're less informed.
Growing up in Walsall in a traditional South Asian family, I was constantly told to keep quiet. "Good girls don't interrupt." "Let the adults talk." "Your opinion wasn't asked for." These messages followed me into my marriage, where my voice was gradually diminished until I barely recognised it as my own. Even in my corporate career, despite delivering multi-million-pound projects, I found myself forced to shrink in rooms where it was made abundantly clear that I was not welcome in them.
But launching You Are Not Invisible After 50 changed everything. For the first time in decades, I decided to unleash my voice completely — not because I suddenly became more knowledgeable, but because I finally understood that my knowledge was valuable precisely because of everything I'd lived through, learned from, and survived.
The Communication Confidence Crisis
Recent research reveals something that many of us already know intuitively: women face systematic barriers to being heard in workplace conversations. In 2017, University of Delaware conducted a study that suggested women receive less credit for speaking up in the workplace than their male counterparts. But what's particularly striking is how this dynamic intensifies for women over 50.
While 55% of knowledge workers claimed that effective communication increased their confidence at work, the reality for women in our demographic is more complex. We're caught in a paradox: we have the most to contribute to conversations yet face the greatest resistance when we attempt to contribute it.
The numbers paint a sobering picture. Women hold 29% of C-suite roles in 2024, a rise from 17% in 2015. However, men continue to outnumber women at every level of the corporate pipeline. This disparity isn't about capability — it's about visibility, voice, and the systematic undervaluing of experience-based authority.
The Authority We've Been Building
Here's what I've learned after four years of building YANIA50 and countless conversations with women navigating similar transitions: the confidence crisis isn't about lacking something to say. It's about understanding that what we have to say carries a different kind of power than it did when we were younger.
At 25, I spoke from hope and theory. At 45, I spoke from developing experience. At 61, I speak from proven results and pattern recognition that can only come from having simply lived and seen things.
This evolution in voice authority creates both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is that our contributions carry weight that younger voices simply cannot match. The challenge is that traditional workplace communication dynamics weren't designed to recognise or amplify experience-based authority.
The Art of Strategic Communication After 50
Speaking up effectively after 50 requires a different approach than the communication strategies that worked earlier in our careers. It's not about adopting the communication styles of younger colleagues — it's about leveraging the unique advantages our experience provides.
Lead with Pattern Recognition When you present ideas now, don't just share the recommendation — share the pattern that led to it. This isn't showing off experience; it's providing strategic context that informs better decision-making.
Frame Expertise as Forward Strategy The mistake many of us make is positioning our experience as historical knowledge rather than predictive insight. Instead of saying "we tried this before," frame it as "based on similar situations, here's what we can expect to happen and how to optimise for better outcomes."
Use Consultant-Level Questioning One of the most powerful ways to establish voice authority is through the quality of questions we ask. Our decades of experience allow us to identify the complexities and potential pitfalls that others might miss. When we ask sophisticated questions that reveal strategic thinking, we establish our expertise without having to announce it.
Own Your Airtime Stop apologising for taking up space in conversations. Your decades of experience have earned you the right to speak with authority. When you preface expert opinions with apologies or disclaimers, you undermine the very expertise you're trying to share.
Use Your Network Authority One advantage we have that younger colleagues often lack is the depth of our professional networks. When appropriate, reference the broader context of your knowledge: "In conversations with leaders across the industry, this challenge is consistently emerging, and here's what's working."
The Compound Effect of Speaking Up
Every time we speak up with authority, we create ripple effects that extend beyond the immediate conversation. Research on workplace communication shows that nearly 45% of leaders say they proactively engage in difficult conversations. However, only 23% of employees agree. This gap represents an opportunity for women over 50 who are willing to bridge the communication divide.
When we speak up consistently and authoritatively, we:
• Model communication courage for younger women in the room
• Establish ourselves as strategic thinkers rather than historical repositories
• Create space for experience-based perspectives in decision-making processes
• Demonstrate that authority comes in different forms and speaking styles
The Long Game of Voice Leadership
At 61, I'm more comfortable with my voice than I've ever been — not because I've become more aggressive or demanding, but because I finally understand that my voice carries decades of hard-won wisdom that simply cannot be manufactured or fast-tracked.
The research confirms what many of us know intuitively: women over 55 are changing the face of the labour force, and organisations that understand this shift will benefit enormously from our strategic input. But first, we need to stop diminishing our own voices in anticipation of others' discomfort.
The workplace needs what we know. The next generation needs what we've learned. The organisations we work for need the kind of strategic thinking that only comes from having navigated multiple crises, transitions, and transformations.
When we speak up with the full authority of our experience, we're not just advancing our own careers — we're changing the conversation about what valuable contribution looks like. We're proving that authority doesn't have an expiration date, and wisdom doesn't come with an age limit.
The question isn't whether we have something valuable to say — we've been building towards this moment for decades. The question is whether we're ready to say it with the full force of everything we've learned, survived, and accomplished along the way.
Because here's what I know for certain: when women over 50 speak up with authority, entire rooms listen differently. Not because we're louder, but because we're speaking from a depth of knowledge that can't be argued with, dismissed, or replicated.
We know what we're talking about. It's time to speak up like we do.