When Madeline Albright became the U.S. secretary of state, she said in an interview on 60 Minutes, that women should interrupt to be heard and make their ideas known. Otherwise, you might be sitting in a meeting and before you know it, a man is saying the same thing you just thought and getting credit for it.

Really? Interrupt? Isn't that rude? If I may interrupt, I believe she's saying that if you've got something important to say, speak up. Don't wait until the chair of the meeting goes around the table and says, "So what do you think?"

The same goes for times when the record needs to be set straight or the direction of the meeting is totally off. You need to step up to the plate. In other words, interrupting, when done right, can be appropriate if you have something valuable to say.

This can be new behavior for many women. Men and women behave differently in conversations, say George Rodman and Ronald Adler, authors of Understanding Human Communications. Research shows that men seem to do most of the talking and do interrupt. Here are some examples that studies have found:

• Women ask more questions in mixed-sex conversations than men--almost three times as many,

• Men interrupt women far more than the other way around in mixed-sex conversations.

Men and women behave differently in certain settings:

• If a man and a woman are talking, men talk longer than women.

• In same-sex situations, women speak for a longer time.

• In same-sex conversations, females use more questions, justifiers, intensive adverbs and personal pronouns. Men use more directives, interruptions and filler words to begin sentences.

Overall, studies indicate that women tend to have a more accommodating style. When dealing with conflict, they are more concerned with maintaining the relationships and are described as better listeners. Men, on the other hand, confront conflict head-on and are more direct.

I'm not suggesting that you become dominate either. Dominators interrupt to give long monologues, the authors explain, saying things like: "Bill, you're just off base. What we should do is this. First..." Nor should you become a blocker who interferes with progress by rejecting ideas: "Wait a minute! That's not right! That idea is absurd." Either behavior prevents a group from working effectively and damages your reputation as a team player.

The ideal is a blend of both styles. Yet another study showed that both men and women advocate a style that balances "the traditional male task-oriented approach with the stereotypically feminine relationship-oriented approach."

My advice is to learn the skill of self-monitoring, which the authors describe as the process of paying close attention to your behavior and using these observations to shape the way you behave. Then you're able to notice: "I'm making a fool out of myself" or "I'd better speak up now" or "This approach is working well. I'll keep it up."

And when the situation calls for it, interrupt by expressing your thoughts clearly and directly, without dictating.

© by Andrea Kay