Like so many other things, both a virtue and a vice. On the one hand, speaking your mind can be identified with honesty, directness, and a promptness of action. A person who speaks his mind is generally one who is more interested in results than in procedure, in change than in consistency, in effect than in cause. This person is eager to get things done, and get them done the correct way, as soon as possible.

On the other hand, it can also be identified with impetuousness, egotism, tactlessness, and impatience. Someone who immediately speaks his or her mind often does so without waiting to consider all the available data or the consequences of the words. They lack influence because other people understand that they rarely see the world from any perspective other than their own.

People who freely speak their minds often make great newspaper columnists, campus preachers, movie critics, and talk show hosts. They just as often make poor politicians, managers, salespeople, and moral authorities.

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