In a meeting, being first to speak doesn’t make you more useful. The faster you react, the less you’ve thought. Waiting to hear what others say first isn’t passivity, it’s data collection. You learn what the room already thinks before you add to it, which changes whether your input moves the group or just layers noise onto an existing position.
Meetings are not the place to surprise people, and the person who waits, absorbs, then speaks to what the room actually needs is the one who avoids adding one.