I have to think that we all have - at one time or another - felt that our own voice was silenced or under-valued. Who among us did not have the experience as a child of feeling as if our parents just didn't listen?

When leaders are willing to talk through their own decision-making process, making visible that values are an important consideration, this sends a powerful signal to employees.

Often we fail to voice and act on our values because, before we even apply our best thinking to developing an action plan, we engage in process of "pre-emptive rationalization." At some deep level, we anticipate difficulty and resistance so we start to back away from our own instinctive values perspective.

Perhaps sometimes we have self-serving sense that we often experience when we believe we know better than our boss, our teacher, our spouse or partner, our friends, our political leaders - if only they would listen to us!

Communicating and celebrating the times when individuals have made values-based decisions is, of course, empowering and can provide role models. But perhaps more importantly, it removes the sense of futility that often prevents employees from speaking up.

Interestingly, many of the organizational characteristics that have been identified as conducive to effectively managing diversity and as conducive to fostering innovation and creativity in the workplace are also important for enabling employees to voice their values.

It seems that simply being willing to express our views clearly, persuasively and without malice, can be a powerful invitation to others who may be lurking out there, in agreement with us but unsure whether their position is speakable or practical.