What Leaders Get Wrong About Listening

In this HBR IdeaCast episode, Adi Ignatius interviews Jeff Yip, an assistant professor at the Beadle School of Business at Simon Fraser University, about the importance of listening for managers. Yip emphasizes that listening is the foundational discipline of leadership, essential for insight, connection, and influence. They discuss the three elements of listening: attention, comprehension, and response, highlighting common mistakes such as listening with haste, defensiveness, invisibility, exhaustion, and inaction. Yip provides practical advice for improving listening skills, including pausing before responding, asking clarifying questions, and creating listening structures within organizations, referencing examples from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.