52. How to Handle Being Interrupted
Picture this: You're presenting a critical point in a meeting when suddenly a colleague jumps in, taking over your sentence like you were never speaking at all. That split-second moment defines your leadership presence more than you might realize.
The truth is, getting interrupted mid-sentence happens to women in corporate settings all the time, but how you respond in that moment determines whether the room sees you as someone whose voice is negotiable or as a leader with real authority. The key isn't about preventing interruptions from happening. What matters is developing the inner command to stay grounded and reset the conversation on your terms.
Tune in this week as I tackle the emotionally triggering experience of being interrupted in meetings, particularly by male colleagues, and share how to transform it from a moment of powerlessness into an opportunity for demonstrating grounded leadership. Through real audio examples, you'll hear the difference between letting interruptions slide and responding with composed authority that respects both your voice and the dynamic in the room.
Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
3 things most women leaders do when they’re interrupted and how it shrinks their power.
How to use physical grounding techniques to access inner authority in triggering moments.
Specific phrases that reset meeting dynamics without attacking the interrupter.
What emotional patterns reveal about your automatic responses to interruption
How practicing comeback responses in low-stakes situations prepares you for high-stakes moments.
The difference between reacting defensively and responding with grounded authority.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. Find complete instructions here!
Practice these scripts:
“Hold on. I'd like to finish my thought first. Then I'll hand it back to you.”“Hold on. I'd like to finish my point. It matters for the decision we're making and then I'll hand it back to you.”
Full Episode Transcript:
Does the following scenario sound familiar to you?
Female Voice: So, what I see as the core issue is that we've been focusing too much on…
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. So what she means is, we need to double down on execution. The real priority is alignment across leadership. So here's what I think we should do.
Yann: Ever been there? You're halfway through laying out a key point, and suddenly, someone, often a man, jumps in like you were never speaking at all. In that instance, most of us do one of three things: We shrink back, we rush to defend ourselves, or we laugh it off like it's no big deal. But here's the truth: How you handle that moment will define your leadership presence. Today, I'm going to show you what not to do, what to do instead, and how to train your inner command so you don't get thrown off course again.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's show. It is short, punchy, and potent. Women in corporate are all too familiar with the feeling of getting cut off, often by men, and not being allowed to finish. But saying, "I'm not allowed to finish," is giving away your power. This is an emotionally triggering situation, but you need to practice accessing your inner authority when this happens.
So today, we're diving into what is in your control, what is in other people's control, and how you can come back from getting cut off in a way that allows you to show up as a grounded, empowered leader with real presence in those moments. I'm going to play some clips that represent a situation that I and all of my clients have at some point in their career experienced because if you don't practice in realistic situations, you aren't going to learn the skills required when the stakes are high and this is actually happening to you. So, it's time to take back your control.
Let me play this clip again, and then we can unpack the emotions that come up and how we want to respond in this situation. If you can catch your pattern in this exercise, you'll be able to connect to your authority and leadership presence in real time more effectively. Most women spend time unpacking, complaining, feeling really annoyed by this pattern of getting cut off. But few women, definitely my clients, but few women focus on actually how they want to come back from it. Because if you know it's going to happen, and it'll probably happen many more times, especially if you're in a male dominated space, but you can practice how you want to show up in those moments. You can practice how you command yourself and how you show up with your authority and your presence in a really grounded way.
So when you hear the following scenario, how do you think you'd react in that moment? Not how you wish you'd react, but really just honestly how you'd react, because this is the pattern we want to uncover first is your initial pattern that will come up for you. All right, let's go. Take a listen again.
Female Voice: So, what I see as the core issue is that we've been focusing too much on…
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. So what she means is, we need to double down on execution. The real priority is alignment across leadership. So here's what I think we should do.
Yann: All right, so that was it. How did you feel? Let's start off with how did you feel. It's pretty normal for leaders or women that have listened to this in the past, they feel scared because they're like, wow, things are out of my control. I was going to say something and now it's been taken away from me. Secondly, they sometimes feel like they are really angry because they're like, oh my gosh, somebody is getting in my way and this is my time to shine, right? There could also be a hurt feeling, right? Feeling hurt. It's like, this is my colleague, this is my boss. Why is he taking over, right? You might have lots of different mixed emotions at that moment.
So, you want to notice for yourself, what is that? Because often times, the way that you are emotionally triggered has you going into some sort of survival mode where you're maybe even apologizing. I remember having this happened to me where somebody interrupted me. I actually said sorry to him and he was like, "You have nothing to be sorry about. I interrupted you." And we want to notice that pattern. What happens to us when this happens? Because we're, you know, responding very quickly. It's often times our automatic response that's happening, right? And there's a part of us that feels kind of not with ourselves and people end up defending, explaining, or speeding up quickly, you know, or trying to get in somehow.
Leadership presence begins with inner command, the ability to stay with yourself when the room gets loud. And I'm going to give you some tools to do that. But let me talk to you about what not to do. This is the most common reaction I see in women leaders. Number one, apologizing for being interrupted mid-sentence. Talking fast to squeeze in your point. Over explaining to prove they're not being difficult. And it feels like it keeps the peace in the moment, but it signals to the room that your voice is negotiable. If you say something like, "Oh, I'm sorry," then somehow it sounds like it's their turn to speak. If you don't say anything, it seems like that's okay that he just totally cut you off.
And then the third thing that could happen is if you jump in and say, "Hey, wait a minute, I was speaking," with a really strong emotional reaction, people will feel a little bit like fear. And I just want you to notice for yourself what happens, you know, when you respond quickly and abruptly and then you kind of feel like you're not really coming across as the leader you want to be. You're not as grounded and people kind of look at you and they're like, what's going on? So I want you to notice that because this is really the moment where you can claim your authority and show up as the leader you want to be versus just reacting to the moment.
Right? We think being polite buys us respect, but in reality, it often buys us dismissal when people feel like they can literally cut you off. So here are some responses that can reset the dynamic without escalating. But it's really important before we go into those responses to learn how to connect to yourself, right? So, the way my clients typically learn this and even for myself, it's like you get that emotional trigger. I mean, even when I listen to that audio, I still get triggered, right? But here's the difference. I can take a deep breath. You can feel your feet on the floor. You can let your tone drop into a steady sort of in your throat versus high pitch, right? This is grounded authority.
And you can come back in a way that feels aligned to the leader and the grounded authentic person that you want to be. Oftentimes when I'm talking to women they're like, you know, they wouldn't let me finish and I couldn't get in and I didn't want to interrupt them the way they interrupted me. But what happens is if you're not making a move towards regaining control or you're not making yourself known in such a way, then oftentimes it can seem like again, your voice doesn't matter.
You can say a few different things. Here are the responses that reset the dynamic without escalating it. And I want you to practice the one that feels the most natural to you. "Hold on a second, John. Let me finish my point." That's one way. "I'd like to finish my thought and then I'll hand it over to you."
So you want to be short, neutral, and unapologetic. Why it works is it doesn't attack the person who interrupted you. It resets the structure. You're bringing it back to you. And it shows that you respect the other person's point, but you also value your own enough so that it lands. And it demonstrates your authority through composure, not volume.
So I want you to listen to one of these responses. And, you know, listen for it, and even hearing a woman assert herself can sometimes come off for people as like, you know, a trigger in itself because we're not used to hearing women in authority. But I want you to just see how these land with you. I'm going to give you two audio. One where somebody is not responding, right? She's just kind of letting things happen. So notice how you feel listening to that. And then the second is going to be one where a woman is showing up more with her grounded authority. So here we go.
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. What she means is…
Female Voice: Oh, okay, sure.
Yann: So just notice that, right? She kind of interrupted but then decided not to. And in that moment, it's like you're almost saying like, okay, my leadership or my voice doesn't matter as much as this person who interrupted me. Here's another version of how you can in a grounded way come back from that interruption.
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. What she means is…
Female Voice: Hold on. I'd like to finish my thought first. Then I'll hand it back to you.
Yann Dang: All right, that's one version and here's another one. Now again, just listen for it for how it feels in your body.
Female Voice: So what I see as the core issue here is that we've been focusing too much on…
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. So what she means is…
Female Voice: Hold on. I'd like to finish my point. It matters for the decision we're making and then I'll hand it back to you.
Yann Dang: All right. You'll notice in this second one, there was even more context. It says this matters because of the decision we're making. Now it could have been the context that this woman leader was holding was like, hey, wait a second. I have data here that you guys need to hear about and then I'm happy to hand it off to you. But it's important that we understand and we're all on the same page. You can also lead with that conviction of holding this data and what you have to say as important for the whole team.
But you want to say it in a way where you are not rushing, where you're not apologizing, where you are taking ownership and where you're convicted, like this matters. I am speaking up and this stuff matters, right? It's not about ego, it's about really making sure that your word is heard and that your point lands because in these really fast-paced situations, you can leave the conversation and be like, what the hell was I doing there? I was just like a fly on the wall or I was just like a wallflower and all of these men took up all the space, right?
Versus learning how to do this, right? And learning how to do this might not be doing it perfectly the first time. It may be very not elegant. It may be a stronger emotion than you want to have, but if you don't practice it, if you don't practice your comeback, then you're never going to be able to master it that feels grounded in your body. And you need to allow yourself some grace to make mistakes. It might seem like, hey John, let me finish my point. And maybe it sounds more sassy than you wanted to, but the more you practice it and the more you notice and the more reps you get in, the better you're going to get at it, right?
And you may say, hey listen, I think what you have to say is important, but I also have important information that's going to really help this whole organization make this discussion, right? Without over explaining just giving some of that context in a very grounded way where you're in your authority.
All right. So those were the main things for today, but I want you to know that in a male dominated space, in certain cultures, this happens a lot. And it's not personal. Oftentimes it's cultural, often times there is some sort of dynamic where men want to prove themselves, especially if there's lots of senior leaders in the room. But don't shrink, don't defend, don't perform for approval, right? You want to anchor yourself and then reclaim the floor. This one shift can change how the room hears you and how you hear yourself. This is truly about how you are taking care of yourself and taking that leadership, that authority back so that you can't be interrupted. So they can't just not allow you to finish, that you take responsibility for this and you speak up and you choose to have your words matter and land with confidence and conviction.
And I promise if you go and you practice this and it's something that you want to have an embodiment of, then you will have that. But it starts with you seeing this as a skill and not something that you're deficient in, right? This is a skill that you can learn and you can practice. All right, go ahead and practice this. I have put the command scripts in the notes, right? I have different ways of you practicing how to come back after interruptions and the more you practice this, the better you'll get. Practice it in front of a mirror, practice it on a Zoom video call. Practice this in meetings and see how it lands. You want to give yourself room to learn this skill. That's how we learn. That's how you get better and better at this.
All right, that is the cutoff comeback episode. I'd love to hear how it works for you, how it lands for you and how it reframes the way you see yourself and your leadership in these pivotal high stake moments. All right, have a beautiful week ahead. Take care.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
Female Voice: So, what I see as the core issue is that we've been focusing too much on…
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. So what she means is, we need to double down on execution. The real priority is alignment across leadership. So here's what I think we should do.
Yann: Ever been there? You're halfway through laying out a key point, and suddenly, someone, often a man, jumps in like you were never speaking at all. In that instance, most of us do one of three things: We shrink back, we rush to defend ourselves, or we laugh it off like it's no big deal. But here's the truth: How you handle that moment will define your leadership presence. Today, I'm going to show you what not to do, what to do instead, and how to train your inner command so you don't get thrown off course again.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's show. It is short, punchy, and potent. Women in corporate are all too familiar with the feeling of getting cut off, often by men, and not being allowed to finish. But saying, "I'm not allowed to finish," is giving away your power. This is an emotionally triggering situation, but you need to practice accessing your inner authority when this happens.
So today, we're diving into what is in your control, what is in other people's control, and how you can come back from getting cut off in a way that allows you to show up as a grounded, empowered leader with real presence in those moments. I'm going to play some clips that represent a situation that I and all of my clients have at some point in their career experienced because if you don't practice in realistic situations, you aren't going to learn the skills required when the stakes are high and this is actually happening to you. So, it's time to take back your control.
Let me play this clip again, and then we can unpack the emotions that come up and how we want to respond in this situation. If you can catch your pattern in this exercise, you'll be able to connect to your authority and leadership presence in real time more effectively. Most women spend time unpacking, complaining, feeling really annoyed by this pattern of getting cut off. But few women, definitely my clients, but few women focus on actually how they want to come back from it. Because if you know it's going to happen, and it'll probably happen many more times, especially if you're in a male dominated space, but you can practice how you want to show up in those moments. You can practice how you command yourself and how you show up with your authority and your presence in a really grounded way.
So when you hear the following scenario, how do you think you'd react in that moment? Not how you wish you'd react, but really just honestly how you'd react, because this is the pattern we want to uncover first is your initial pattern that will come up for you. All right, let's go. Take a listen again.
Female Voice: So, what I see as the core issue is that we've been focusing too much on…
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. So what she means is, we need to double down on execution. The real priority is alignment across leadership. So here's what I think we should do.
Yann: All right, so that was it. How did you feel? Let's start off with how did you feel. It's pretty normal for leaders or women that have listened to this in the past, they feel scared because they're like, wow, things are out of my control. I was going to say something and now it's been taken away from me. Secondly, they sometimes feel like they are really angry because they're like, oh my gosh, somebody is getting in my way and this is my time to shine, right? There could also be a hurt feeling, right? Feeling hurt. It's like, this is my colleague, this is my boss. Why is he taking over, right? You might have lots of different mixed emotions at that moment.
So, you want to notice for yourself, what is that? Because often times, the way that you are emotionally triggered has you going into some sort of survival mode where you're maybe even apologizing. I remember having this happened to me where somebody interrupted me. I actually said sorry to him and he was like, "You have nothing to be sorry about. I interrupted you." And we want to notice that pattern. What happens to us when this happens? Because we're, you know, responding very quickly. It's often times our automatic response that's happening, right? And there's a part of us that feels kind of not with ourselves and people end up defending, explaining, or speeding up quickly, you know, or trying to get in somehow.
Leadership presence begins with inner command, the ability to stay with yourself when the room gets loud. And I'm going to give you some tools to do that. But let me talk to you about what not to do. This is the most common reaction I see in women leaders. Number one, apologizing for being interrupted mid-sentence. Talking fast to squeeze in your point. Over explaining to prove they're not being difficult. And it feels like it keeps the peace in the moment, but it signals to the room that your voice is negotiable. If you say something like, "Oh, I'm sorry," then somehow it sounds like it's their turn to speak. If you don't say anything, it seems like that's okay that he just totally cut you off.
And then the third thing that could happen is if you jump in and say, "Hey, wait a minute, I was speaking," with a really strong emotional reaction, people will feel a little bit like fear. And I just want you to notice for yourself what happens, you know, when you respond quickly and abruptly and then you kind of feel like you're not really coming across as the leader you want to be. You're not as grounded and people kind of look at you and they're like, what's going on? So I want you to notice that because this is really the moment where you can claim your authority and show up as the leader you want to be versus just reacting to the moment.
Right? We think being polite buys us respect, but in reality, it often buys us dismissal when people feel like they can literally cut you off. So here are some responses that can reset the dynamic without escalating. But it's really important before we go into those responses to learn how to connect to yourself, right? So, the way my clients typically learn this and even for myself, it's like you get that emotional trigger. I mean, even when I listen to that audio, I still get triggered, right? But here's the difference. I can take a deep breath. You can feel your feet on the floor. You can let your tone drop into a steady sort of in your throat versus high pitch, right? This is grounded authority.
And you can come back in a way that feels aligned to the leader and the grounded authentic person that you want to be. Oftentimes when I'm talking to women they're like, you know, they wouldn't let me finish and I couldn't get in and I didn't want to interrupt them the way they interrupted me. But what happens is if you're not making a move towards regaining control or you're not making yourself known in such a way, then oftentimes it can seem like again, your voice doesn't matter.
You can say a few different things. Here are the responses that reset the dynamic without escalating it. And I want you to practice the one that feels the most natural to you. "Hold on a second, John. Let me finish my point." That's one way. "I'd like to finish my thought and then I'll hand it over to you."
So you want to be short, neutral, and unapologetic. Why it works is it doesn't attack the person who interrupted you. It resets the structure. You're bringing it back to you. And it shows that you respect the other person's point, but you also value your own enough so that it lands. And it demonstrates your authority through composure, not volume.
So I want you to listen to one of these responses. And, you know, listen for it, and even hearing a woman assert herself can sometimes come off for people as like, you know, a trigger in itself because we're not used to hearing women in authority. But I want you to just see how these land with you. I'm going to give you two audio. One where somebody is not responding, right? She's just kind of letting things happen. So notice how you feel listening to that. And then the second is going to be one where a woman is showing up more with her grounded authority. So here we go.
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. What she means is…
Female Voice: Oh, okay, sure.
Yann: So just notice that, right? She kind of interrupted but then decided not to. And in that moment, it's like you're almost saying like, okay, my leadership or my voice doesn't matter as much as this person who interrupted me. Here's another version of how you can in a grounded way come back from that interruption.
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. What she means is…
Female Voice: Hold on. I'd like to finish my thought first. Then I'll hand it back to you.
Yann Dang: All right, that's one version and here's another one. Now again, just listen for it for how it feels in your body.
Female Voice: So what I see as the core issue here is that we've been focusing too much on…
Male Voice: Yeah, I'll take it from here. So what she means is…
Female Voice: Hold on. I'd like to finish my point. It matters for the decision we're making and then I'll hand it back to you.
Yann Dang: All right. You'll notice in this second one, there was even more context. It says this matters because of the decision we're making. Now it could have been the context that this woman leader was holding was like, hey, wait a second. I have data here that you guys need to hear about and then I'm happy to hand it off to you. But it's important that we understand and we're all on the same page. You can also lead with that conviction of holding this data and what you have to say as important for the whole team.
But you want to say it in a way where you are not rushing, where you're not apologizing, where you are taking ownership and where you're convicted, like this matters. I am speaking up and this stuff matters, right? It's not about ego, it's about really making sure that your word is heard and that your point lands because in these really fast-paced situations, you can leave the conversation and be like, what the hell was I doing there? I was just like a fly on the wall or I was just like a wallflower and all of these men took up all the space, right?
Versus learning how to do this, right? And learning how to do this might not be doing it perfectly the first time. It may be very not elegant. It may be a stronger emotion than you want to have, but if you don't practice it, if you don't practice your comeback, then you're never going to be able to master it that feels grounded in your body. And you need to allow yourself some grace to make mistakes. It might seem like, hey John, let me finish my point. And maybe it sounds more sassy than you wanted to, but the more you practice it and the more you notice and the more reps you get in, the better you're going to get at it, right?
And you may say, hey listen, I think what you have to say is important, but I also have important information that's going to really help this whole organization make this discussion, right? Without over explaining just giving some of that context in a very grounded way where you're in your authority.
All right. So those were the main things for today, but I want you to know that in a male dominated space, in certain cultures, this happens a lot. And it's not personal. Oftentimes it's cultural, often times there is some sort of dynamic where men want to prove themselves, especially if there's lots of senior leaders in the room. But don't shrink, don't defend, don't perform for approval, right? You want to anchor yourself and then reclaim the floor. This one shift can change how the room hears you and how you hear yourself. This is truly about how you are taking care of yourself and taking that leadership, that authority back so that you can't be interrupted. So they can't just not allow you to finish, that you take responsibility for this and you speak up and you choose to have your words matter and land with confidence and conviction.
And I promise if you go and you practice this and it's something that you want to have an embodiment of, then you will have that. But it starts with you seeing this as a skill and not something that you're deficient in, right? This is a skill that you can learn and you can practice. All right, go ahead and practice this. I have put the command scripts in the notes, right? I have different ways of you practicing how to come back after interruptions and the more you practice this, the better you'll get. Practice it in front of a mirror, practice it on a Zoom video call. Practice this in meetings and see how it lands. You want to give yourself room to learn this skill. That's how we learn. That's how you get better and better at this.
All right, that is the cutoff comeback episode. I'd love to hear how it works for you, how it lands for you and how it reframes the way you see yourself and your leadership in these pivotal high stake moments. All right, have a beautiful week ahead. Take care.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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