The most underrated power of great leaders

A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.

Leaders rated as poor listeners by their workforce rank in the 15th percentile for trust, while those who excel at listening rank in the 86th percentile for trust. Leaders with low trust see their overall effectiveness plummet to the 14th percentile, while conversely, highly-trusted leaders rise to the 84th percentile in effectiveness.

This data comes from an analysis of 4,217 leaders via 360-degree feedback in a study conducted by the leadership development and research firm Zenger Folkman. The behaviors that correlate most strongly with trust are related to a leader’s listening effectiveness. 

It all shows that the difference between being one of the best leaders or one of the worst boils down to listening. So our tendency to label listening as a “soft skill” may be inaccurate and short-sighted, as it appears to be the most direct path to effective leadership and organizational trust.

And why does organizational trust matter?

According to a Harvard Business Review study, people at high-trust companies report:

• 74% less stress
• 106% more energy at work
• 50% higher productivity
• 13% fewer sick days
• 76% more engagement
• 29% more satisfaction with their lives
• 40% less burnout

“In contrast, employees at low-trust organizations are often bogged down by office politics and infighting,” wrote HBR’s Abbey Lewis. “They are more likely to withhold information and hoard resources because they don’t feel safe sharing them. As a result, decision making is slower and less effective. At a time when distrust seems to be the default, fostering a high-trust organization has never been so important — and it often starts with leadership.”

Leaders who actively listen increase job satisfaction by 22% and employee retention by 25%.

Statistically speaking, you don’t listen as well as you think

You ever hear about how 73% of U.S. drivers consider themselves better-than-average drivers? Or that American math students believe they are better at math than they actually are?

Here’s why that’s such a problem: Students who believe they have high math competence when they actually don’t tend to not engage in remediation, they ask fewer questions, they don’t seek help, and they persist less when struggling.

We fall into this same trap with listening. Research shows that 96% of us claim to be good listeners — and research also shows that we retain only about half of what people say to us immediately after they’ve said it.

Sooooo, maybe we’re not as awesome as we think (especially if you’re a man: Women vastly outperform men at listening to information and retaining it). Maybe check in with your relationship partner about how much they trust you to listen to what they tell you, to digest that information, and understand them better afterward as a little test against your self-assessments.

But there’s hope for even the worst of us. Listening is a practicable, improvable skill, and one that can dramatically transform your professional and relational life.

Celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman champions the idea of enhancing memory in order to better retain what we’re listening to. In his new book Read Your Mind, he shares his practical “Listen, Repeat, Relate” method for remembering people’s names:

“Listen” means focused listening. This is where Pearlman himself is most likely to mess up, he says. The ability to clear the mind and truly focus on being an active listener without thinking about how to respond or anything else is a mandatory first step. It’s not that we forget names so much as we never really hear or learn them the first time.

“Repeat” literally means he repeats the person’s name a couple of times in his response to meeting them, and if there are multiple ways to spell the name, he always learns which way here.

“Relate” requires some sort of association or hook. Molly with red hair, or Brad who just visited Antarctica, or Penny who wears a purple scarf.

Most people in leadership positions probably (hopefully) already know the names of the people working for them. But these same techniques and skills are useful in other applications. 

Maybe Molly with red hair mentioned at the meeting that she and her family are visiting Nova Scotia to see her favorite aunt. Pearlman suggests writing this down in a notebook or digital calendar, and then before your next meeting or email with them, you can ask them about whatever it was you put in your notes.

These seemingly micro human interactions are the foundation on which trust is built, on which real connections are made. The kind of person who remembers our name, who cares enough to pay attention, and check in about something meaningful to us later, is the kind of person we want to work with — and follow.