Your People Are Telling You What They Need. You're Just Not Listening.
By Derek Neighbors on October 16, 2025
Early in my career, I was leading a team where everything was falling apart. Productivity was dropping. Morale was low. People were frustrated. And I was frantically trying every management technique I could find.
I reorganized the team structure. I adjusted the processes. I changed the meeting schedules. I brought in new tools. Nothing worked.
Then one of my team members said something that stopped me cold: “We’ve been telling you this for months.”
I stood there, genuinely confused. What had they been telling me? I hadn’t heard anything.
And that was the problem. I hadn’t heard a single fucking word.
The Moment You Realize You’re Deaf
I went back through my notes from our one-on-ones. I reviewed the comments from our retrospectives. I looked at the feedback surveys I’d sent out.
It was all there. Every problem. Every obstacle. Every frustration. They’d been telling me exactly what they needed, and I’d been treating it like background noise.
I wasn’t listening. I was managing. And there’s a brutal difference.
Your people are already telling you what they need. You’re just not hearing them. And that deafness is costing you more than you realize.
Why Leaders Are Getting Worse at This
We’re living in the age of information overload. Every leader has Slack notifications, email threads, dashboard alerts, AI summaries, and back-to-back Zoom calls. We’ve convinced ourselves that consuming more information makes us better leaders.
It doesn’t. It makes us worse at listening.
Remote work fragmented our attention. AI gave us the illusion we can process everything faster. The always-on culture made pausing to actually hear someone feel like wasted time. We’ve systematized leadership to the point where the messy, slow work of understanding humans feels inefficient.
But that’s exactly the work that matters. And we’re failing at it more spectacularly than ever.
What Actually Happens When Leaders Don’t Listen
I’ve watched this pattern play out dozens of times across different organizations. The details change, but the core pattern remains the same.
Corporate Leadership Failures
A high-performing team suddenly becomes dysfunctional. The leader sees the metrics declining and implements new processes, better tools, clearer expectations. Nothing improves.
Why? Because the real problem was that three team members were in conflict over role boundaries, and they’d mentioned it in passing multiple times. The leader heard “role clarity” and implemented job descriptions. The team needed someone to actually listen to the human dynamics at play.
Military Leadership Insights
In combat units, there’s a stark difference between leaders whose units perform under pressure and those whose units fall apart when things get hard.
The difference isn’t tactical skill. It’s not experience. It’s whether the leader understands what keeps their people awake at night. What they fear. What they need to feel safe taking the risks that combat demands.
The leaders who know this don’t have better intelligence. They have better listening.
Startup Leadership Challenges
I’ve watched founders scale from 5 people to 50 and completely lose their ability to lead effectively. What changed?
With 5 people, they knew everyone intimately. They heard everything because they were present for everything. At 50 people, they assumed they could manage the same way but with better systems.
They couldn’t. Because you can’t systematize listening. And without listening, all your systems are built on assumptions instead of reality.
Educational Leadership Applications
A principal I worked with was struggling with teacher retention. Every year, good teachers left. Exit interviews mentioned “support” and “resources,” so the school implemented new professional development programs and bought better materials.
Teachers kept leaving.
Then one principal actually sat down and listened. Really listened. Not to hear what professional development they needed, but to understand what it felt like to teach in that building.
What she heard: Teachers felt disrespected by parents, unsupported when conflicts arose, and invisible to administration unless something went wrong.
No professional development program fixes that. But a leader who actually hears it can.
The Pattern: Why Leaders Don’t Hear
Here’s the brutal truth: You’re not listening because listening is fucking hard. It requires killing parts of yourself you’re protecting.
Pattern 1: The Talking-While-They’re-Talking Pattern
You’re already formulating your response while they’re still talking.
I see this constantly in one-on-ones. A team member starts explaining a problem, and the leader’s face changes. You can see them stop listening and start solving. They’re three steps ahead, planning the solution, before the person even finishes describing the problem.
Marcus Aurelius wrote, “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” But you can’t know what’s true if you’re not actually hearing what’s being said.
Pattern 2: The Solution-Before-Understanding Pattern
Someone mentions they’re struggling with workload, and you immediately start reorganizing tasks. You jump to fixing the problem before you understand what the problem actually is.
Maybe the workload isn’t too heavy. Maybe it’s poorly distributed. Maybe it’s the wrong kind of work for their skills. Maybe it’s not the workload at all, it’s that they feel like the work doesn’t matter.
You’ll never know because you started solving before you finished listening.
The Greeks understood this. Phronesis, practical wisdom, requires understanding before action. Premature solutions create more problems than they solve.
Pattern 3: The “I Already Know” Pattern
You assume you understand their experience because you’ve “been there before.”
A junior developer mentions struggling with code reviews, and you launch into your own war stories. You tell them what worked for you. You explain how you handled it. You give them your hard-won wisdom.
And you miss what they’re actually experiencing.
Maybe code reviews are different now. Maybe their reviewer has a different style than yours did. Maybe the struggle isn’t technical, it’s interpersonal, or cultural, or about confidence.
You’ll never know because you assumed your experience was their experience.
Socrates’ greatest wisdom was knowing what he didn’t know. Your certainty is your blindness.
Pattern 4: The Metric-Over-Human Pattern
You listen for data points and performance indicators instead of human needs.
A team member talks about burnout, and you hear “capacity issue.” You start thinking about workload distribution, vacation schedules, task prioritization. You’re already building the spreadsheet in your head.
But they said burnout. Not capacity. Burnout is existential, it’s about meaning, purpose, sustainable pace, feeling valued. Capacity is mathematical.
You can’t solve an existential problem with a mathematical solution.
Ancient leaders understood that humans aren’t machines. Arete, excellence, in leadership means seeing people as they are, not as metrics on a dashboard.
Pattern 5: The Filtered-Through-Your-Agenda Pattern
You only hear the parts that align with what you already wanted to do.
Someone mentions needing better tools, and you hear validation for the process change you’ve been planning. You take their feedback as confirmation that your strategy is right.
But maybe they meant different tools. Maybe they were talking about something completely unrelated to your process change. Maybe the tool problem is a symptom of something deeper.
You’ll never know because you’re filtering everything through your predetermined agenda.
Marcus Aurelius constantly questioned his own assumptions. He knew that being in power makes you vulnerable to believing your own narratives.
What Actually Works
Stop talking. Stop planning. Stop assuming. Just fucking listen.
The moment everything changed for me was when I realized that listening isn’t passive. It’s the hardest work you’ll do as a leader.
Real listening requires killing your ego over and over again. It requires giving up your certainty. It requires sitting in the discomfort of not knowing. It requires admitting that your perspective is limited.
Most leaders can’t do it. They’d rather manage symptoms than face the vulnerability of actually hearing their people.
Here’s what worked for me:
Step 1: Shut Up
Actually shut up. Stop formulating responses. Stop planning solutions. Stop relating everything back to your experience.
This is harder than it sounds. Your brain wants to jump to solutions. Your ego wants to demonstrate expertise. Your anxiety wants to prove you have answers.
Ignore all of it. Just hear the words they’re saying.
I started putting my pen down during one-on-ones. Not taking notes. Not planning. Just being present with what they were saying.
The first time I did this, the silence was excruciating. But in that silence, people started saying things they’d never said before.
Step 2: Ask One Simple Question
“What do you need?”
Not what you think they need. Not what the metrics say they need. Not what you assume they need based on your experience.
What they’re actually telling you they need.
And then shut up again and listen to the answer.
Don’t ask leading questions. Don’t offer options. Don’t help them figure it out. Just ask what they need and let them tell you.
Half the time, they don’t even know until you create space for them to figure it out.
Step 3: Repeat Back What You Heard
“What I’m hearing is…”
This forces you to actually process what they said instead of what you wanted to hear.
You’ll be amazed how often you get it wrong. How often your summary doesn’t match what they actually said. How often your filters distorted the message.
This step is humbling as hell. Which is exactly why it works.
When you repeat back what you heard, they can correct your misunderstanding. They can clarify. They can add nuance. And you can actually understand instead of assuming.
Step 4: Act On What You Heard
Not what you think is best. Not what fits your plan. What they actually told you they need.
If you can do it, do it. If you can’t do it, tell them why. But at least they’ll know you fucking heard them.
This is where most leaders fail. They listen, they understand, and then they ignore it because it doesn’t fit their strategy or their budget or their timeline.
That’s worse than not listening at all. Because now they know you heard and chose not to care.
If you’re going to listen, you have to be willing to act on what you hear. Otherwise, you’re just pretending.
What Changes When You Actually Listen
I wish I could tell you that listening fixed everything immediately. It didn’t.
But it changed everything about how I led.
You Stop Losing Good People for Stupid Reasons
People leave managers, not companies. And most of the time, they leave because their manager didn’t hear them.
They told you they were drowning, and you told them about time management. They told you the work felt meaningless, and you told them about the company mission. They told you they needed support, and you sent them to training.
When you actually listen, you hear the real reasons people are struggling. And you can address them before they become resignation letters.
I stopped losing people who quit but stayed. I stopped losing people who left because they felt invisible. I stopped losing people because I was deaf.
You Stop Implementing Solutions That Don’t Work
How many times have you rolled out a solution that everyone hated? How many times have you implemented a change that made things worse instead of better?
Most of the time, it’s because you solved a problem you assumed existed instead of the problem that actually existed.
When you listen, you solve real problems. Not the ones in your head.
You Stop Being Surprised By Problems
The worst thing a leader can say is “I had no idea.” Because most of the time, you did have an idea. People told you. You just weren’t listening.
When you actually hear your people, you see problems coming. Not because you’re smarter, but because they told you it was coming.
Early warning systems don’t work if you’re not listening to the alarms.
You Build Actual Trust Instead of Just Talking About It
Everyone says they want to build trust. They do trust falls and team building exercises and create psychological safety workshops.
But trust isn’t built in workshops. It’s built when people see that you actually hear them.
When someone tells you something difficult and you act on it, you build trust. When someone raises a concern and you dismiss it, you destroy trust.
It’s that simple. And that hard.
The Challenge
Here’s your challenge: For one week, say nothing in your one-on-ones except “What do you need?” and “What I’m hearing is…”
That’s it. No solutions. No advice. No war stories. No relating it back to your experience.
Just listening and reflecting back.
See what happens when you stop managing and start hearing.
My guess? You’ll learn more in one week than you learned in the last six months. Not because your people suddenly got more communicative, but because you finally got quiet enough to hear them.
What it will cost you: Your certainty. Your sense of control. The identity of being the person with answers. The comfort of staying in your head instead of being present with their reality.
What you’ll gain: Actual understanding. Real trust. The ability to solve problems that matter instead of symptoms that don’t.
Final Thoughts
Your people aren’t the problem. Your deafness is.
They’re already telling you what they need. They’re showing you where the problems are. They’re giving you the information you need to actually lead instead of just manage.
But you’re not hearing them because listening requires something you don’t want to give: your certainty, your expertise, your agenda, your ego.
Marcus Aurelius understood this two thousand years ago. True leadership requires seeing people as they are, not as you need them to be. It requires killing your assumptions over and over again. It requires the vulnerability of not knowing.
The Greeks called this phronesis, practical wisdom. But before wisdom comes listening. Before understanding comes hearing. Before leadership comes the brutal humility of shutting the fuck up.
Your people are telling you what they need.
The question isn’t whether they’re speaking loudly enough.
It’s whether you’re brave enough to actually listen.
Ready to stop pretending to listen and start doing the real work? MasteryLab provides the community and accountability for leaders who are done protecting their ego and ready to actually hear their people.
