Whether you had any real knowledge of either person beforehand, by now almost everyone in America knows about the beating the singer Rihanna took at the hands of her then-boyfriend Chris Brown. You also know about the subsequent fallout; the almost collapse of his career, her going into hiding for awhile, his pleading guilty to assault and then only getting community service instead of going to jail.

While he has refused to discuss details, saying they were private (even though we all know what happened because we've seen the police report), last Friday on one of the late night news shows, Rihanna was going to be giving her first interview on the subject, and she was going to tell details. Luckily, it was taped in advance, because just hours before her interview came on, Chris Brown decided to try to diffuse whatever negative reactions were going to come out by going on MTV and saying she should have kept her mouth shut and not talked about it, as he has by "honoring" what he had done to her.

Reactions were swift and negative, and have lasted this entire week. Many people feel he tried to crash her party and defend himself. Others thought it was another attempt by him to control her actions, even though they're now apart from each other, legally and otherwise. It seemed to be the desperate act of a kid, and he is still only 20 at this juncture, trying to keep people from finding out the truth, and his actions seemed to make everything worse for him than he could have ever imagined.

Every once in awhile, the smartest immediate thing to do is to just shut up. That may sound harsh and direct, but sometimes the truth is just that way. Whenever we feel the need to defend ourselves, sometimes we miss out on just what someone else is saying. There might be underlying reasons why someone is saying what they're saying. They might be lying outright, and you might pick up on something they're saying which you can use to prove it.

During last year's Celebrity Apprentice, one time one of the people who wasn't even being considered for being kicked out of the competition was exactly the person Donald Trump fired because she said something she shouldn't have said at the time. Usually he waits for the team captain of the week to decide who comes back into the boardroom to possibly be fired, but he took this extraordinary step in selecting her before they got to that point.

That often happens. It doesn't mean that if you have an opinion you should keep it to yourself. What it means is that you should listen first, hear what others are saying, even if it's about you, before speaking. It also means not speaking when you really don't have anything to say that contributes to what's going on. In the improper setting, words can actually harm more than help.

This is a major leadership lesson, since leaders are usually ready to talk and get things fixed. Often, shutting up is the best way to proceed.