There is, in my opinion, a very crucial connection between listening, learning and leading. These three things form a reinforcing triad that allows one person to move a group forward whereas another person will fail to make progress or will do so with lots of collateral damage. Listening is all about making sure you understand with clarity what others are concerned about. A good test for that is when you can make the other person’s case better than they can. This has little to do with agreement, just understanding.

Learning is all about discovering what connects, integrates or otherwise reconciles competing views in such a way that a previous roadblock can suddenly be turned into an opportunity or new possibility.

Leading follows as a practical application of what you have understood through listening and learned from exploring new possibilities. But leading absolutely requires action, which in turns requires courage. Action can take many forms – decisions, proposals, delegation, communication, etc.

When leadership is most effective, these actions leverage the collective goodwill and insight that comes from the listening and learning efforts. In my experience, effective leadership is not as much about charisma, oratory or great ideas – even though each is quite beneficial. It is about connection. Do people believe their leader is connected to them in a meaningful way? Do they trust the leader to make decisions that take into account the expressed concerns? This is much more likely when a leader listens first, learns next and leads last.