Latest / Starting Over: Stories of Reinvention, Hope & Second Chances / The Quiet Power of Listening: Why It’s Your Greatest Leadership Skill | Starting Over
Transcript
- You know that moment in a conversation when you realize you’ve been waiting to speak instead of actually hearing what the other person is saying? That split second where your mouth opens before your heart catches up? I want you to take a deep breath with me right now. Just one. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Good. Because I think we need to reset the room for a second. Let’s get real for a second about how loud our lives have become. I’m not just talking about the noise from traffic or the notifications pinging on your phone, though those are guilty pleasures of modern chaos. I mean the internal noise. The mental clutter that sits behind your eyes while you’re trying to lead a team, raise a family, or just navigate a difficult relationship with a friend who needs you. We live in an era that rewards volume. It rewards the person who speaks first, who has the loudest opinion, who can fill the silence with confidence, even if that confidence is mostly just armor. We are taught that leadership looks like standing at the front of the room, pointing, directing, commanding. And don’t get me wrong, direction matters. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the quietest form of leadership there is. The one that doesn’t require a title, a corner office, or even a microphone. It’s the art of listening. Not the kind of listening where you nod politely and wait for your turn to interject with your brilliant insight. I mean deep, soul-level listening. The kind that makes the other person feel seen, really seen, for the first time all day. Let me tell you a story about my own messy attempts at this. A few years ago, during one of my many career pivots, I found myself managing a small creative team. We were tight on deadlines, stressed, and frankly, a bit dysfunctional. I thought my job was to fix everything. I thought being a good leader meant having all the answers, moving fast, and keeping everyone on a leash so we wouldn’t trip over ourselves. I was exhausted. My shoulders were up by my ears, and my patience was thinner than printer paper. Then, there was this one afternoon. We had hit a wall. A project was stalled, tensions were high, and someone on the team, let’s call her Maya, went quiet. She’s usually vibrant, full of jokes and ideas. But that day, she just sat there, staring at her screen. The old me would have pushed. I would have asked, 'What’s wrong? Why aren’t you contributing?' I would have tried to pull the answer out of her because silence felt like failure to me. But something stopped me. Maybe it was the fatigue. Maybe it was a gut instinct screaming that I didn’t have the bandwidth to fix this today. So, I did nothing. I pulled up a chair. I sat next to her. And I just said, 'I’m here.' I didn’t ask for details. I didn’t offer solutions. I just waited. And in that space, Maya exhaled. She started to talk. Not about the project, but about how overwhelmed she felt, how she was trying to hold together three different roles in her life and feeling like she was failing at all of them. If I had interrupted, if I had tried to 'lead' with advice, I would have missed the real problem. I would have treated the symptom, not the wound. That moment was a pivot point for me. I realized that by staying silent, I had given her permission to be human. And in doing that, I became a better leader than I ever would have been by shouting instructions. We often mistake listening for passivity. We think if we aren’t speaking, we aren’t leading. But I want to challenge that notion today. Listening is active. It is exhausting. It requires you to suspend your ego, your need to be right, your desire to control the narrative. It takes courage to sit in the discomfort of someone else’s pain without trying to rush them out of it. Think about the last time someone truly listened to you. Not the distracted kind of listening where they’re checking their watch, but the kind where they put down their phone, look you in the eye, and let your words hang in the air until they settle. How did that make you feel? Did you feel lighter? Did you feel braver? When people feel heard, they stop defending themselves. They start creating. They start solving problems because their nervous system isn’t stuck in fight-or-flight mode. As leaders—whether you’re leading a boardroom or a household—we have the power to change the emotional temperature of a room simply by listening well. It’s a radical act of service. It says, 'Your experience matters more to me than my agenda.' And that is magnetic. People follow those who make them feel safe, not just those who give them orders. Safety is the precursor to innovation. It’s the precursor to loyalty. You cannot build a community, a team, or a relationship on command alone. You build it on connection. And connection is built in the pauses between the words. Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. 'Sacha, this sounds nice, but I’m busy. I don’t have time to sit in silence.' And I hear you. Life is chaotic. We are juggling so much. But listening doesn’t always require hours of meditation. It starts with micro-moments. It’s putting away the device when your partner walks in the door. It’s asking a colleague, 'How are you really doing?' and then actually waiting for the answer, whatever it may be. It’s resisting the urge to share your own similar story immediately after they finish theirs. We have a habit of hijacking conversations to make them about us. We hear a word, and suddenly we’re launching into our own anecdote because we want to show empathy, but we end up centering ourselves. True listening is selfless. It’s curious. It’s asking questions that help the other person uncover their own truth, rather than steering them toward yours. I’ve learned that when I stop trying to be the hero of every conversation, I become the hero of the relationship. It feels counterintuitive, doesn’t it? We want to be the smartest person in the room. We want to be the one who knows everything. But the most respected leaders I’ve known are the ones who ask the most questions. They are the ones who admit they don’t know. They are the ones who create space for others to shine. This ties back to what we talked about in a previous episode about owning your mistakes. When you listen, you open yourself up to being wrong. You open yourself up to learning. And there is no greater growth than admitting you don’t have all the answers. That vulnerability is not weakness; it’s the strongest form of strength. So, how do we practice this? How do we weave this into the fabric of our daily lives, especially when we’re feeling pressured to perform? Start small. Pick one interaction today where you will listen twice as much as you speak. Notice the urge to interrupt. Feel it rise in your chest, and then gently push it back. Let the other person stumble over their words. Let the silence stretch for a second longer than feels comfortable. You’ll find that the magic happens in that stretch. That’s where trust is built. Also, listen to yourself. We rarely do this. We treat our own inner voices with harshness, criticizing every decision, every misstep. But imagine listening to yourself with the same compassion you’d offer a friend. What are you telling yourself today? Are you saying, 'You’re doing great,' or are you saying, 'You’re falling short'? Your internal leadership matters just as much as your external one. If you are constantly berating yourself, you have no energy left to listen to others. You become reactive, defensive, closed off. Healing begins when you turn inward with kindness. It begins when you acknowledge your own exhaustion, your own joy, your own fears, without judgment. When you are at peace with your own noise, you have the capacity to hold space for someone else’s. This is resilience as a muscle. It grows stronger with use. Every time you choose listening over reacting, you are building that muscle. You are proving to yourself that you can handle complexity, that you can stay grounded in the storm. And that steadiness? That is what people crave. They crave a leader who won’t panic. They crave a friend who won’t judge. They crave a presence that says, 'I am here, and I am not going anywhere.' Think about the ripple effect of this simple shift. When you listen deeply, you model behavior for everyone around you. Your children learn that their feelings are valid. Your teammates learn that their ideas are welcome. Your friends learn that they are worthy of attention. You are teaching them how to treat themselves by showing them how you treat them. It’s subtle, but it’s profound. We often underestimate the power of quiet influence. We think change has to be loud to be effective. But sometimes, the most powerful changes happen in the whispers. In the glance across a crowded room. In the hand held on a bench. In the words, 'I hear you.' These moments stitch us together. They remind us that we are not alone in our struggles. And in a world that often feels fractured, lonely, and divided, that sense of belonging is the greatest gift you can give. So, I invite you to carry this thought with you as you move through your day. Look for the unsung heroes in your life—the ones who listen, who stay, who care. And then, look in the mirror. Ask yourself if you are becoming that person for someone else. You don’t need a title to lead. You just need an open heart and a quiet mind. You just need to be willing to show up, fully and authentically, for the people you love. Let’s get real for a second. It’s hard work. It’s vulnerable. It’s messy. But it is also the most beautiful part of being human. And I believe in your ability to do it. I believe in your capacity to heal, to grow, and to lead with love. Welcome back to the beautiful chaos, friends. Keep listening. Keep growing. Keep showing up. Thank you for letting me into your day. I’ll see you in the next one. Be gentle with yourself. You’re doing better than you think.