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Tag: leadership advce

  • The Most Influential Leaders Say Less and Listen More. Here’s Why

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    Leadership listening is in sharp decline, and the consequences run deep. A survey from People Insights found that only 56 percent of employees believe senior leaders genuinely make an effort to listen, which is down from 65 percent two years ago.

    We live in a world where algorithms reward noise. Visibility has become a proxy for value, and airtime is the metric that many use to measure leadership presence.

    But real influence doesn’t come from speaking more. It actually comes from listening better. Influence grows through empathy, trust, and the ability to see and understand people.

    The disconnection crisis

    When leaders stop listening, people stop contributing. Ideas fade, trust erodes, and creativity retreats into silence. I’ve seen this in large transformation programs with a sound strategy. Employees felt unheard, so progress stalled.

    When we paused to listen, everything changed. People began to share what was really going on. They talked about their fear of redundancy, exhaustion, and the loss of identity sitting just beneath the surface. Once they acknowledged those emotions (and responded with intentional action), we saw a decrease in resistance, and collaboration returned.

    This situation reminded me that change rarely fails because of poor strategy. It fails when we don’t understand the “why” behind the resistance. Leaders might not be able to fix every concern, but giving people space to speak and be heard starts to rebuild trust. Listening is the first act of empathy, and empathy is the bridge back to psychological safety.

    The future model of influence

    There is another kind of silence that’s intentional and not imposed. It’s the pause that allows leaders to think, feel, and respond with awareness rather than react. This is where modern influence begins. Visibility and authority won’t build the leaders of tomorrow. What will set them apart is their ability to build trust and lead with empathy to create psychologically safe workplaces.

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    Fast Company

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  • One Lesson in Leadership from Robert Redford

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    As an Academy Award winning director, actor, producer, and the founder of Sundance Film Festival, the late Robert Redford, 89, was undoubtedly an impressive individual. But what made him a great leader was his “generosity to incubating new talent,” according to Michelle Satter, the founding senior director of Artist Programs at the Sundance Institute, who worked with Redford for 44 years.

    Satter penned a homage to Redford’s leadership style in TIME Magazine, where she noted that despite his many talents, Redford was very “humble” and a “good listener.” At the beginning of their professional relationship, Satter admitted she struggled with being in the presence of someone so accomplished.

    “It felt like the most important person in the world was sitting next to me,” Satter wrote. “I would often wonder to myself, how could I just be me, authentically, around someone of that stature? But Bob was uniquely humble. I quickly discovered that he only wanted us to be ourselves, and be completely present.”

    Evidently, Redford was aware of how nervous he made aspiring filmmakers, and other types of professionals trying to break into Hollywood. So how did he make these folks feel comfortable? He listened, Satter said. Perhaps business leaders can take a page out of Redford’s playbook to build the next generation of talent.

    “Watching him as a creative advisor guiding the emerging filmmakers was truly mesmerizing,” she said. “With an awareness of his own presence, he would intentionally start by listening and inspiring filmmakers to find their voice, their stories, and the confidence and skills they needed as directors and writers.”

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    Kayla Webster

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