#042 Balancing listening AND speaking
Hello,
Welcome to this year's final edition of The Future Of Leadership, an approximately monthly newsletter packed full of leadership wisdom for CEOs and senior technology executives.
Once again, my virtual bookshelf was the most clicked link in last month's newsletter. You can access all previous newsletters here.
What I'm reading
As someone who is working to become a more embodied individual and coach, I was quick to order Leadership Embodiment: How the Way We Sit and Stand Can Change the Way We Think and Speak, by Wendy Plamer and Janet Crawford, when it was recommended to me by a trusted coaching colleague during an embodiment exercise.
"Without a skillful means of responding, our reactions are at best, automatic inept habits, and at worst, disastrous fight, flight, and freeze behaviors. When we do not have an embodied awareness of the things that are preventing us from acting with confidence, compassion and wisdom, we will continue to be reactive which includes laminating nice behavior on top of our survival or stress reactions. It is never pretty when the laminate breaks and the reactivity rushes out. Becoming familiar with our personal patterns gives us the means to develop skillful ways of responding".
Check out my LinkedIn post (please Like, Comment and Share) for a summary of the book's distinction between leading from Personality versus leading from Center, our embodied natural state of wisdom and presence.
Another wonderful paragraph in the book discusses one of the most challenging polarities of leadership, balancing listening and speaking:
"Effective leaders create a felt-sense of belonging, are open to receiving information, and foster collaboration. They then shift to being decisive, saying what needs to happen, and mobilizing their team, family, or group into action that gets the project done. The shift from collaboration to individuation is not abrupt - it is like breathing, in which we inhale and then exhale, first one then the other, not both at the same time.
Likewise, skillful leaders cycle from listening to speaking their truth, to inclusive collaboration, to decisive action, to inclusiveness, to individuation, to collaboration, to receiving feedback, to giving directives... Embodied leadership is not an either-or. Leadership embodiment is a blend that flows and shifts back and forth between receptivity and advancement".
Consider the irony of this given these two posts shared seperately on the same day by two influential leadership thinkers (thank you Bob Sutton for calling this out):
Adam Grant on Twitter / X - "In a distracted world, the most underrated leadership skill is listening. 144 studies, 155k people: Good listeners have deeper bonds and better results. We feel valued, and they get smarter. Great leaders are devoted learners. A key to learning is to listen more than you talk".
Jeffrey Pfeffer on Linkedin - "In the leadership literature, there is a well-established finding of a large, positive correlation between speaking time and leader emergence. This association occurs regardless of what people say while they are talking. People who simply talk more are more likely to be seen as leaders".
How do you balance listening and speaking to be at your most effective?
What I'm listening to
"Your employee culture is an information-gathering organism".
Businesses, and their cultures inherent, are complex adaptive systems. Yet too often we treat them like something that we can control and shape top-down and at our whim. By taking an organistic approach to culture, Stan Slap is one of the few people that I've come across who really grasps how cultures actually work. This conversation is really worth a listen.
Stan Slap on the Art of Building Effective Employee Cultures
Pair with this summary of Stan's book Under The Hood: Fire Up and Fine Tune Your Employee Culture, which includes a summary of the Seven Deadly Sins of dealing with an employee culture.
What I'm working on
Thank you to all the great clients that I've worked with this year. From early and growth stage founders, through to seasoned corporate executives, it's the range of individuals and sectors that I work with which makes my job so enjoyable. Here's two recent testimonials:
"Working with Richard through the ups and downs of being a founder and executive has been a great experience. I have found his personality and approach to coaching a lot more inviting and pragmatic than the stereotypical “Navy Seal coach”. His help has made significant impact on my growth as a founder & executive, as well as helping me balance that with a young family".
Mats Olsen, Co-founder & CTO, Dune ($80 million, Series B)
"Richard has been an exceptional executive coach for many of our senior leaders. His professionalism, deep expertise, and genuine commitment to personal and professional growth make him an invaluable partner. I highly recommend Richard to any organization seeking to elevate their leadership capabilities".
Daniela Vargas, Senior Learning Partner, Flutter International (FTSE 100)
And thank you to all of you who read and engage with this newsletter.
Here's to 2025!
