When I was engaged in pastoral ministry, I did a significant amount of pre-marital counseling. It always was a privilege to be invited into a couple’s early life together, and it inevitably led to a much more meaningful marriage ceremony. I also did a fair amount of marriage counseling in the congregations I served. Couples, some younger and some older, gathered in the confidence of my study where they shared stories that were sometimes filled with disagreements, tensions, sadness, anxiety, hope and opportunity. Rather than “counseling,” I always qualified our journey together as “listening,” as I am not a credentialed therapist. During those years I learned that many couples often knew the solution to whatever was testing them. They didn’t need a therapist so much as a safe environment where they could experience each other listening and, in the process of listening, a solution to their challenge usually emerged.
On its surface, the discipline of listening doesn’t seem to mesh with how we imagine leadership today. In the leadership as destination model, leaders are often thought of as being the smartest people in the room; the one “in charge,” the person who has all of the right answers, even before the question is asked. There is an unspoken security to this model, to be sure. Organizations in general and people in particular don’t function well with uncertainty, specifically as it relates to CEO’s and other leaders who are required to file a quarterly earnings report. Leaders of this type of organization know that their investors want answers to their questions. Confidence and decisiveness are the coins of the realm—the marks of a strong leader.
But there is another model worth examining. In the leadership as journey paradigm that I’ve been exploring, the ability to listen often and well becomes even more important than the characteristics of confidence and decisiveness. Leaders must be comfortable in their own skins, to be sure, but they understand that they are on a journey where they are not required to be “the smartest person in the room.” In fact, good leaders in this paradigm understand that focused listening to what is being said and, particularly, to what is not being said, is an important discipline whenever you want to evoke the very best thinking and, ultimately, a solution to the impending organizational challenge. In this way, leaders not only have access to their individual thoughts, but they benefit from an environment where they and the entity they lead are strengthened by the best thoughts of all who have a vested interest in the organization’s success.
I vividly recall my first experience with a person who listened in the way that I am describing. About thirty years ago, I was invited to a dinner with one of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner. I had spent the better part of the day driving Buechner around Pittsburgh and listening to him reminisce about how he used to spend the summers of his youth with his grandparents in that city. He had been invited to dinner that evening by half-a-dozen of his admirers where he knew, of course, that he was expected to be the main entrée! But something quite remarkable happened. Rather than being the font of wisdom and knowledge, Buechner hardly said a word during the entire dinner conversation. He would occasionally ask a question, or invite a deeper insight to the discussion at hand, or he would notice someone who had been silent during dinner, and deftly turn the conversation towards them. “The look on your face tells me that you’ve got something to say. Am I wrong about that?” And, of course, the person did have something to say. Buechner spoke only a few words throughout the evening and, yet, those who invited him seemed to have been completely satisfied by the conversation. Some years later, while reading one of his new books, I saw bits and pieces of that dinner conversation in his narrative. Buechner was keenly aware of the limitations of his own mind, and he instinctively knew that a collection of passionate minds “working a problem” together, often yielded results that took him beyond his own ability to imagine.
Leaders who listen often and well have this same kind of effect on their organization. They understand their own limitations and they also recognize the collective sense of those around them. By daring not to be the “smartest person in the room,” they elicit the best thoughts and wisest counsel of their committed colleagues. As has been said about any organizational endeavor with a positive outcome, “Failure is an orphan, while success has many parents.” In other words, lead in a way that draws from and incorporates the best thoughts of those around you, and you’ll develop an organizational culture of ownership, commitment, and success.
