Listen

The smartest leader I ever worked with said the least.

Not because he had nothing to say. Because he understood something most leaders miss: you can't hear the signal if you're always broadcasting.

As a CTO for two contemporary fashion brands, I live in a world that rewards speed. Ship faster. Optimize harder. Measure everything that moves. The dashboard is always right there, pulling you toward the result. And the pressure to hit the number, close the quarter, ship the feature creates a gravitational force that makes the journey feel like an obstacle.

But here's what I've come to believe: leaders are too quick to focus on the result. And in doing so, they miss the journey - and everyone on it.

As an introvert, I've always found listening easier than broadcasting. But what comes naturally to me is a discipline every leader needs - and most have stopped practicing.

In Risk, I wrote that risk-aware leadership begins with listening - not with the conditions around you, but with the ones following you. This is that post.

The Result Trap

I've been thinking about the most repeated problem I see in business. Leaders push through decisions, micro-manage to speed things up, and treat the journey as friction between them and the outcome. They optimize for the destination and assume the path will sort itself out.

It doesn't.

When you focus entirely on the result, you stop listening to the people doing the work. You stop hearing the ones with more experience than you who know where the real risks are. You stop sensing the team member who has the answer but hasn't been asked. And slowly, without anyone announcing it, you create a debt - not just technical, but organizational and cultural. The kind of debt I explored in Moloch, where every decision to optimize for the short term burns something you can't see on the dashboard.

As I wrote in Dare, everything that truly matters - trust, belief, readiness - lives in the space between what you can measure and what you can't. Listening is the skill that helps you find that space. And like everything that matters, it's hard to measure.

Listening as Social Intelligence

I've watched high performers walk out the door. Not because the work was too hard or the pay was too low. Because they stopped being heard.

Listening is not just waiting for your turn to speak. It's making space for someone, with the intention of understanding what's being said on a profound level.

I keep coming back to something I explored in Beyond - the CIO I once worked with who could walk into a tense meeting and, within minutes, make everyone feel heard. Not through data. Not through frameworks. Through presence. That's social intelligence applied to leadership: the ability to read the room, to sense what people need before they can articulate it themselves.

When leadership is focused entirely on the result, these essential skills get ignored. Employees begin to feel they're not listened to or valued. And that's when trust starts to erode - quietly, the way I described in Trust, where you can hit every number while the culture peels off the walls.

Instead of pushing harder, leaders should ask a different question: How can I support the people following me to do a better job? Asking. Listening. Communicating clearly why you're doing things. Acting consistently. That's what builds the trust and confidence an organization needs to reach its goals.

The Quiet Cost

I understand the pressure. In a fast-paced business landscape, results are so crucial that you de-prioritize the journey to get there. I've done it. I've been so focused on the outcome that I failed to include other voices along the way.

I also know what it feels like to be on the other side of it - to have your knowledge disregarded because leadership is too focused on short-term success to listen. It's how you lose passion for what you're doing. Not because the work is hard, but because you stop mattering to the people directing it. You start silently quitting - still showing up, still doing the job, but no longer bringing yourself to it.

And here's the risk: you may have short-term successes, but you won't build a lasting business. You'll have employees doing their job but not bringing their passion. When a better opportunity comes along, they'll leave - because you were so focused on results that you failed to communicate why your business exists in the first place.

To build a business that outlasts you, you need to turn this around.

The Guide Who Listens

Maxwell writes in Lead Like a Guide that a guide's first job is to listen - to the mountain, to the weather, to the team. Before a guide gives an instruction, they read the conditions. They assess the terrain, the risks, the energy of the group. Only then do they act.

Business leaders rarely do this. We announce the destination and assume everyone will follow. But as I wrote in Change, the destination trap isn't about picking the wrong summit - it's about assuming the team will follow without being heard first.

The guide listens first. Then they guide.

Some companies are already acknowledging this shift - investing in culture and people first, building bottom-up organizations where people feel secure and are encouraged to perform at their highest level. They've found that this type of leadership actually produces better results. Not because it optimizes for the outcome, but because it optimizes for the people who produce it.

It takes time. The reward is much higher. If you do this, you'll build something where people want to be - and where people will follow you through good times and bad.

You need to listen to the ones following you. See and understand where they're coming from. Get to know them, and then guide them on the way. You'll have a bigger chance of navigating the risks that come up - and a bigger chance of success.

But it starts with you. Taking the first step. Choosing to listen before you lead.

The willingness to sit in the noise, to resist the urge to optimize everything into silence, and to hear what the numbers can't tell you.

I wrote that in Dare. I'm still learning to live it.

I'm closing in on the end of this leadership series, built on the six principles Christopher I. Maxwell writes about in Lead Like a Guide. In a coming post, I'll explore why having a bigger picture - the ability to step back and see the whole terrain - is what ultimately guides you and your team through the journey toward something that lasts.