Listening as Leadership

In lifting, the strongest athletes don’t just follow cues, they go looking for them. They want feedback on form, timing, and control, because they understand that every correction is a chance to get better. That hunger doesn’t stop at the gym doors. The best leaders have the same mindset: they don’t listen so they can reply. They listen so they can understand.

Listening starts with actually being there. It is easy to nod along while you plan your response. Every leader does it, and every leader who says they don’t is doing it right now. The listening that changes anything happens when you quiet your own thoughts long enough to hear what the person across from you actually needs. It might be a training partner describing something that feels off under the bar, or a teammate raising a concern in the middle of a sprint. Either way, the act of listening says: I value you, and I value what you see.

We’ve all dealt with someone who claims to want feedback and then argues or shuts down the moment they get it, right? Or worse, nods along while rehearsing their rebuttal. In lifting, those athletes plateau or get hurt. In leadership the consequences are subtler but just as damaging: honesty fades, the same mistakes repeat, and new ideas stop showing up.

When people decide their leadership won’t listen, or watch their feedback get ignored a few times in a row, they stop engaging. Leadership becomes something to avoid rather than something to trust. A conversation with a manager starts to feel like a tax on progress instead of a path to improvement. Silos form as people retreat to wherever they feel heard, or at least left alone.

Feedback exists for a reason. It is an outside perspective on the things we cannot see ourselves. Day after day, stuck in our own heads, we reinforce our own ideas, and some of them are bad ones. Without somebody on the outside telling us, flaws harden into habits.

But feedback has to be given responsibly too. Some people use “feedback” as cover for being cruel or condescending. Good leaders know that useful feedback is clear, aimed at the action rather than the person, and delivered with the intent to build rather than break. It is the difference between saying “You suck at this” and “You could improve by keeping your elbows tighter during the press.” The first one deflates somebody. The second one gives them something to do on the next rep.

Earlier in the book I talked about product managers getting lost in tactical execution and missing the bigger picture of the workflow or the user journey. The same thing happens under the bar. You can obsess over the sticking point in your press and never notice that your bar path has been drifting forward the whole time. Stepping back and welcoming constructive feedback is what breaks through those blind spots.

Listening also creates psychological safety, and I have never seen a high-performing team that didn’t have it. When people know their ideas and their fears will be heard without judgment, they stop guarding their words and start telling you the truth. That candor is what innovation and resilience grow out of.

Leaders who listen multiply their own perspective. They get dozens of lenses on the mission instead of one, and none of it happens passively. They ask clarifying questions, they invite dissent, and they understand that the best solutions rarely come from a single voice. They come from many voices shaped into one direction.

And just as a lifter has to listen to their own body, leaders have to listen to themselves. Noticing fatigue, frustration, or ego creeping in is the first step to recalibrating. It is leadership turned inward, staying aware of the signals that could compromise a decision or derail the momentum of the team.

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” — Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

There will also be days when you screw up. Not every meeting, Slack message, or email is going to land, because you’re human. Part of being a good leader is accepting that, taking responsibility for the mistake, and being transparent with your team when it happens. Saying something like “Yesterday I didn’t give you enough time to clearly make your point. I’m sorry. Can we continue the conversation?” shows strength, not weakness.

Just as empathy is not a sign of softness, openly owning your mistakes builds trust and models the behavior you want from your team. Too many leaders cling to the idea that they have to stay up on a pedestal, and they mistake authority for respect. These explicit-authority leaders demand deference without earning it, forgetting that respect is given when it is first shown. We are all human. Titles are made-up constructs.

Be a human, don’t be an asshole, and you’ll be amazed at how well your team can operate.

Listening as leadership is a daily discipline. It takes humility, curiosity, the courage to act on what you hear, and the wisdom to give feedback that lifts people up instead of tearing them down. It is the difference between a leader who demands compliance and one who inspires commitment, and between a team that survives and one that thrives.