Listening is often overlooked as a leadership skill, but it can challenge assumptions, reveal overlooked knowledge and lead to better decisions, writes social innovator Ken Banks
Leadership tends to be associated with confidence, decisiveness and having good ideas. Listening gets rather less attention, despite its ability to challenge assumptions, reveal knowledge that might otherwise be overlooked and change the way problems are understood.
After more than 30 years working across conservation, international development and technology, some of the most useful lessons I’ve encountered have come not from arriving with the right answers, but from discovering that the original question was wrong. Conversations with people whose experiences challenged my assumptions gradually changed the way I thought about both leadership and social change.
Listening in this sense is more than waiting for a turn to speak. It allows somebody else’s experience to reshape an existing understanding and leaves open the possibility that an established view may need to change. That can be particularly valuable in fields such as international development, where solutions conceived far from the communities they are intended to help can easily overlook knowledge and approaches that already exist locally.
During my early work with communities across East Africa, technology was often presented as a potential answer to problems that had resisted other interventions. Yet many of the communities I encountered were already finding ingenious ways to improve their lives with limited resources. The useful question was therefore not simply what new solution could be introduced, but what was already working, what wasn’t and whether technology could remove an obstacle without creating another one.
That approach later shaped FrontlineSMS, a messaging platform that went on to help tens of millions of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Rather than expecting communities to change their behaviour to fit new technology, the platform was designed around the ways people were already communicating. Its development reflected a broader idea: lasting change is more likely when it builds on people’s existing strengths and knowledge rather than overlooking them in the search for something new.
Similar patterns can be seen in leadership. Some of the most effective leaders I’ve encountered have not necessarily been those with the loudest voices or strongest opinions, but those who noticed what others missed, asked thoughtful questions and created space for different perspectives. Their authority did not depend on always knowing the answer, but on helping a group develop a fuller understanding of the problem.
‘Conversations with people whose experiences challenged my assumptions gradually changed the way I thought about both leadership and social change,’ says social innovator Ken Banks. Image: iStock / fizkes
Mindfulness has also influenced the way I think about this. Although it is often associated with reducing stress or improving wellbeing, its emphasis on attention has obvious parallels with listening: noticing before reacting, observing before reaching a judgement and allowing an idea to develop before deciding what to make of it. In conversations and disagreements, that can create room for understanding that an immediate response sometimes closes down.
The ability to do this is being tested by a culture increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, instant communication and relentless competition for attention. Speed is rewarded, opinions can be expressed almost immediately and certainty is often easier to communicate than doubt. Yet complex challenges such as climate change and social division involve competing experiences, interests and possible solutions that are unlikely to be understood through a single perspective.
Lasting change is more likely when we build on people’s strengths, rather than overlook them in our rush to fix a problem
Listening offers no guarantee of a better decision, and nor does it mean that every view should carry equal weight. Its value lies instead in improving the information on which decisions are made: exposing assumptions, bringing different experiences into the discussion and revealing approaches that may already be working.
Over three decades, many of the changes in my own thinking have begun with somebody challenging an assumption I hadn’t realised I was making, or with closer attention revealing an answer that was already there. Leadership will always require decisions, ideas and, at times, conviction, but listening can help determine whether those decisions are responding to the world as it actually is.
Ken Banks explores how mindfulness, empathy and thoughtful leadership can help create lasting social change here. He is the author of The Little Book of Mindful Social Change.
Main image: iStock / Mariia Vitkovska
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