A week ago, I wrote my leadership reflections on George Floyd and the Minneapolis riots. This was a very rare case for me where I felt the intense need to share my real-time observations on what was going on in the world around me. I wrote it and published it on the same day.

As time elapsed this past week, I’ve had more time to ponder and reflect. I’d like to more fully explore an important lesson that I touched on last week and will expound upon here.

Leaders speak

In my previous article, I quoted James 1:9: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” The point I made was that too many of us who call ourselves leaders are so slow to speak that we do not speak at all. In that silence, we fail. I chose to speak last week and stand by it today.

Leaders listen

Today, I want to focus on the first part of that quote. As leaders, we “should be quick to listen.” I’m afraid that too many of us think this is obvious and simply move on. Honestly, do any of us have enough self-awareness and humility to actually admit that we may be a poor listener? Have you met any colleagues who don’t consider themselves to be good listeners?

Listening = open-mindedness

I think it’s really easy to over-estimate our listening skills. I’ve come up with a few ways that I evaluate myself on this subject. Naturally, I listen to ideas that reinforce opinions I already hold, and I discard ideas that challenge my opinions. Over time, that results in me simply becoming more entrenched in my opinions.

I mentioned last week that I don’t unfriend people that hold different opinions than I do. I don’t unfriend them on social media or in real life. Keeping myself open to these relationships means I have friends that are all over the dial on every issue. That keeps me aware of diverse perspectives and keeps me from creating an echo chamber for myself. As a leader, I depend on this.

Here’s a tough question to ask yourself: “When was the last time I changed my mind as a result of listening?” If you can’t come up with a quick answer, that should tell you something. I wrote an entire article about changing my mind. According to Jeff Bezos, changing your mind is a sign of intelligence. I’ve also written about how I completely changed my mind about cloud computing technologies.

Even though I can point to these examples, I still have a lot of room to grow.

Listening during #BlackoutTuesday

You may have noticed a phenomenon this past week linked to the response to George Floyd’s death. It was called Blackout Tuesday. It was started by the music industry, but quickly became mainstream. In my own words, I will describe the purpose of this phenomenon. We all have opinions. We all have something to say. We are all looking for a platform to speak and a way to be heard. I’m not-so-secretly hoping that a lot of people read this article and share it with their friends and colleagues.

That’s all fine, but that’s not the point of Blackout Tuesday. The point of Blackout Tuesday was to be silent and listen. Take a day. A whole day. Don’t speak. Just listen. Just learn.

I’m not one to jump on social media bandwagons. Many of you probably saw it and took a pass. It’s a little too easy and cliché to jump onboard with whatever is popular. So, while I opted out of other social media bandwagon moments, I did embrace this one.

Here’s why: I believe in listening. I believe listening is a huge part of the solution to our incredibly complicated problem of racial injustice. I also believe there is no such thing as leadership without listening. They go hand-in-hand. I’m all about leadership, so I’m all about listening, and I’m all about #BlackoutTuesday. I made my profile picture black and didn’t post anything else all day.

In that I renewed and continued my commitment to listen and learn. I didn’t do it to make a statement, but I did it to listen to the statements of others, especially those whom I’ve inadvertently ignored.  Here’s an example of one of the stories I listened to on Tuesday that impacted me. Check it out here.

Listening at work

Zach on Leadership is a blog for my professional colleagues. While the issue that inspired this article is more social than professional, this absolutely and directly applies to our work as professional business and technology leaders.

It is imperative that we listen, especially to those who’s opinions differ from ours. It is critical that we listen, especially to those that are not a part of the majority. We say we value inclusion. We practice that by inviting and listening.

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