Over the last few years I’ve spent a good amount of time studying leadership, both formally, through classes and reading, and informally, by observing the leaders around me, both good and…less good. I think there are a lot of different ways to be a good leader, and many different kinds of people can lead well, but one thing I’ve learned that seems critical for good leadership is the ability to listen.
Organizations are kind of fascinating: You have a number of individuals, all with our own strengths and weaknesses, moments of irrationality and emotional triggers, experiences and bases of knowledge, and we come together in an organization to try to accomplish something that can only be done by people working together. There are so many theories about organizations and how they function, but at the most basic, it’s about human beings trying to work together, and in order to work together effectively, we need to be on the same page about what we’re trying to do and we need to be able to communicate with each other in order to get whatever it is done. The job of a leader is to make sure that we agree about what we’re trying to do, that people have what they need to get stuff done, and that people are communicating effectively. I mean, that’s a simplification, but I like to try to break things down to their most basic concepts, to get at the root of what it is I’m talking about.
There is a model of leadership that says a leader is someone who decides, who directs every action and determines what happens, when. In this model, the leader knows best and others are expected to follow, to be directed. I think this model is patriarchal and old and dead. I don’t think it fits with how real people feel and behave and the kinds of organizations where people want to work. And a lot of recent leadership theory says the same. It’s not even that recent: for the past few decades there has a been more research done on shared decision making, delegation of authority, and collaborative organizational structures in the leadership literature. I believe we’re starting to recognize that people are complicated and that you have to work with human nature and human complexity in different ways to create really effective organizations. People aren’t always content to be directed, to be moved around like pawns on a chessboard. They want agency and the ability to direct their own lives. At least, I know I do.
So, what does this have to do with listening?
I think it gets back to the idea that an organization is trying to do something bigger than any one individual could achieve on their own. When you bring smart people together, everyone in that group has good ideas, a different perspective, and a different body of knowledge, and you will end up with a better outcome if you can bring all of those different perspectives and pieces of information together. And I say this as a person who, frankly, prefers to work alone. I might prefer to work alone, but I know that the outcome will be better if I don’t. I know that whatever I’m trying to do will be better if I set aside my own assumptions and ideas, at least for a little while, and truly listen to what the people around me have to say.
There’s also the matter about making sure people are on the same page, and that everyone in the organization has the same idea about we’re trying to do. If I am the titular leader of an organization, I may think that I have the right, even the duty, to set the direction and tell people what are goals are. But telling people what the vision is and what the goals are doesn’t work very well. Because, you know, there’s that whole thing again about smart people having minds of their own. An organization will be so much more powerful if the vision about what it’s trying to accomplish is built, collectively, by the people in that organization. And we do that through dialogue and conversation. Leaders need to listen to what people are saying, what people believe, what values they bring to the table, and why they do what they do, and they need to advance that conversation across the organization. You don’t advance dialogue by talking, you do it by listening.
Leadership isn’t about directing, but about facilitating. It’s about enabling people to be the best they can be and to do great work, and about bringing people together. And I think, in order to do that, you have to be able to listen. So many times, I’ve seen people who think that leading means having the best ideas and being right and telling people what to do. But the great leaders I’ve worked with in the twenty years of my working life have not been noteworthy for what they said or what they, personally, accomplished. They were great because they brought people together, listened to what people said, and created the conditions for people to get shit done. They trusted their people to make good decisions and treated everyone on the team as equals, with an equal stake in achieving good outcomes and an equal ability to do great work.
Listening isn’t easy. Listening isn’t about giving people a chance to talk and then doing what you think is best. Its requires being willing to have your ideas and perspectives challenged, and being willing to recognize when you are wrong or when you don’t have all of the information or when someone knows more than you. Lord knows I am not always very good at it, but I’m practicing, every day. I try to make sure the people I work with know they can call me out when I’m not listening or when I’m starting to dominate a conversation. And they do. It makes me better at my job to hear other people’s ideas about what I’m doing, and what we’re doing together.
I think there are a lot of other things leaders can do to be effective. I also think that leaders can be in many different places in an organization, and don’t necessarily have to be in official “leadership” roles. But ultimately, if you can’t listen authentically, openly, and with humility, you are not going to to be effective, no matter what else you do. And of course, I’m open to hearing from you if you don’t agree.