Why men should say sorry more

If you have read any article about how to be a successful woman in business, chances are you've heard that women should stop apologizing. The logic is that saying words like "sorry" send a "subtle message of subordination." These articles are misleading and at their core perpetuate a culture of discrimination because they presuppose a right way of communicating.

The NYTimes article that popularized the meme was based on an article that stated women who said "sorry" did so because they had a lower threshold for what was offensive. The study was based on 120 college students from The University of Waterloo and therefore, it is a gross overreach to say this applies to all women.

However, the basic principle, that we have different models of what is offensive or acceptable and that our language reflects those differences, is intuitive. Some people might find something offensive and therefore say sorry, while others don't and will not say sorry.

This is universally true across diverse cultural norms and does not apply to just women and men. For example, Japanese may not say "no," but, instead express disagreement in other ways because they have a different relationship between culture and self and want to maintain harmony.

The practicality of good cross-cultural communication is that to be effective both parties need to adapt. There are articles like "6 things you should know about business in Japan." Yet, when it comes to women in business, I have yet to find an article that says that men should say "sorry" when talking to women.

Psychology experiments show that the most effective communication is communication adapted to the audience. Communication Accommodation Theory states that if you mirror the person you're communicating with, you are more likely to build rapport and be understood. So, men and women should both say "Sorry" to people who say "Sorry" and should not say "Sorry" to people who don't.

We all speak differently because we have different experiences of the world. True leadership is being able to adapt communication styles in order to collaborate in a diverse work environment. Until we embrace our differences, we will never achieve equality in the workplace or reap the benefits of diversity.

Emily Grewal is the founder of Lexicon Labs, helping people become more effective communicators by creating tools that enable us to understand each other.