Surprising symptoms that suggest leaders may not be listening

Think about the last time you walked away from a conversation with a leader and didn’t feel listened to. Perhaps you got interrupted, rushed or your ideas were dismissed. Or you may have been given space to share but you didn’t feel safe to say what you really thought. Or maybe you shared openly but the conversation didn’t go anywhere.

You may have felt frustrated, deflated and thought, “why bother”? If this is just one interaction, the impact may only last for a short time. But if this happens regularly to you, the impact is not just how we feel after the interaction, it colours our relationship with the leader. If this is a common experience across a lot of people in a team or organisation, the symptoms may start showing up in a range of organisational contexts.

In your organisation, do you know whether people feel listened to? If you see any of the following symptoms, they may be signs that people are not feeling heard.

1. Reactive, unproductive behaviours: People usually don’t come to work intending to behave poorly. We see reactive behaviours because of how they interpret what’s happened. You might see:

• Change resistance
• Disruptive behaviours
• Passive-aggressive/sabotage

Often these disruptive behaviours result from people feeling like their concerns are not listened to, understood or addressed directly in some way.

2. Communication gone underground: When we feel we can’t communicate directly, the issues do not disappear, they just go underground. You may see signs such as:

• Gossiping
• Undiscussables (elephant in the room that never get discussed openly)
• People being too polite
• Limited diversity in thinking
• Lack of productive disagreements and intellectual friction

People feel afraid to discuss issues directly, so they find indirect ways to express them. What is missing here is an environment of listening and open conversations. Safety to disagree and discuss different perspectives is absent. As Oscar Trimboli, author of Deep Listening shares, The undiscussables are always discussed – just not where you need them to be discussed.

3. Energy gone flat: Most people start in a new role with energy and enthusiasm but they can get chipped away when they don’t feel listened to. The symptoms may be:

• Lack of creative ideas
• Passionate people going quiet
• Transactional relationships (just get the job done)
• Disengagement
• Do as one is told, no more

The “why bother?” apathy accumulates and results in not caring enough to do the best they can or to build strong relationships. They might do just enough to be kept employed.

4. Not my problem: Working together in and across teams for the greater good requires effort, and communication is often a big barrier. You might see:

• Silos, divisiveness
• Blaming
• Not taking accountability for outcomes

Collaboration goes out the door when listening and open communication cannot occur. Without listening and mutual respect, individuals and groups do not understand each other’s interests so a silo mentality grows to protect those interests.

5. Issues covered up: If it is not safe to raise issues, it takes enormous courage for anyone to raise them. All too often leaders depend on people being courageous rather than creating safety and space to allow their concerns to be heard. As a result, we might see:

• Issues and risks not raised early enough to address
• Limited upwards feedback
• People hiding their struggles, leading to burnout
• Nasty surprises

One of the most dangerous symptoms of people not feeling heard is that they don’t raise issues that should be raised for leaders to address. If leaders only find out important issues when it is too late, it is a sign that there is insufficient safety and space.

“Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.” Andy Stanley

If you know you could be better at listening, consider the cost of people not feeling listened to beyond the interaction. Each time you have an opportunity to listen, weigh up the time/energy cost of being present to listen fully vs. the short and long term cost of that person or people walking away not feeling listened to. What environment for communication do you aspire to create?

If you believe you are a good listener, but notice any of these symptoms, people may not necessarily feel heard or feel like they can say what they need/want to say. There could be a gap between your intention to listen and how much people feel listened to.

Real listening is so much harder than it seems (see Why is listening hard? Three big reasons ). Or there may be a low listening set point, that is, low expectations of listening and being listened to in your team or organisation.

Having good listening techniques is not enough for people to share openly and to feel heard. Listening is not just about being silent, either. Your listening is only as useful as the space and safety you create for people to share openly and be heard.

Leaders have an outsized part to play in creating the conditions for people to speak up and they can learn to do this better. While encouraging individuals to speak up is important, open and authentic communication will not occur without the leaders’ awareness and capability to create a culture of listening. Even when leaders have good intentions and believe they do it reasonably well, power dynamics make it hard to see the unintended effects of what may appear to be minor behaviours.

Do you see any of these symptoms in your team or organisation? How can you learn to be a leader who listens?

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Related articles:

• What is your organisation’s listening set point? And how to raise it? by Anna Reeve
• Why listening is more than being silent by Leigh Gassner
• Just listen! Why do we continue to underrate listening as a leadership skill? by Anna Reeve

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We’d love to listen to you and your experience of listening in your workplace. Please visit our survey via this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/exampleOWLeader . Most people find it takes approx. 10 minutes.

Written by Megumi Miki, who is working with Anna Reeve and Leigh Gassner on the Leaders who Listen project. The project aims to develop leaders who create safety and space within their organisations and truly listen to enable better decision making, drive growth and innovation, enhance collaboration and inclusion, and manage risk. If you’d like to understand how well you and/or your leaders listen and create an environment of authentic communication, contact us about our Leaders who Listen white paper and assessment tools.