Leaders Aren’t Listening As Well As They Think
April 15, 2026
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A lot of leaders are better at telling the truth than listening to it.
Amy P. Kelly said that. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
Because if you’re honest with yourself, you know exactly what that looks like. The meeting where someone raises a concern, and the leader spends the next five minutes explaining why it’s not actually a problem. The one-on-one where an employee shares frustration and walks out feeling worse than when they walked in. The town hall where the Q&A turns into a monologue.
The leader might not have even been wrong, but they just weren’t listening. And what I have learned studying leaders is that:
Listening isn't a soft skill, it's an effective leadership strategy.
Gallup just released their State of the Global Workplace report. Global employee engagement fell to 20%. It’s the lowest it’s been since 2020. The first time ever it’s dropped two years in a row. Gallup: The cost? An estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity worldwide. Nine percent of global GDP. AAP News
And what are leaders doing with this information? They are responding with more town halls. More vision casting. More communication and talking
And engagement keeps falling.
Here’s what I think is actually going on. The leaders who are losing their people aren’t listening to them. It’s not even what they say or the value behind what they say, it’s the space they are dedicating to connection and making people feel heard. Said differently, the best leaders ask more than they tell.
Most leaders think they’re listening. Most aren’t.
Hearing is physiological. Sound enters your ears. Listening is something else. It means paying attention with your mind. Considering what someone is actually saying. Making them feel like what they said mattered.
Here’s the principle worth remembering: hearing is through your ears, but listening is through your mind.
Hearing is through your ears, but listening is through your mind.
One is an ability. The other is a skill. And like every skill, it has to be developed. Most people don’t develop it because they don’t realize they’re bad at it. Research from the LearnLoft’s assessments shows that only 13% of professionals have effective listening skills. Which is a problem because we spend roughly 60% of our communication time listening, yet retain about 25% of what we hear.
That gap is where trust erodes. And where engagement goes with it.
The benefits of listening aren’t soft. They show up in real outcomes. Here are two that don’t get talked about enough.
Innovation from the inside.
Most executives believe innovation comes from strategy sessions, brainstorming workshops, and R&D budgets. Some of the best ideas come from somewhere else entirely. They come from the people closest to the work. In the early 1990s, a factory floor worker at Frito-Lay called the CEO’s office with an idea for a new product. The CEO, to his immense credit, took the call and took this worker extremely seriously. He invited him to prepare a full presentation for the executive team. That decision to listen led to a product pitch that helped shape one of the most iconic snack brands in American history.
The idea didn’t come from the boardroom. It came from someone on the factory floor.
Your best ideas might not either. The people on your front lines see things you don’t. They hear from customers directly. They feel the friction in your processes before it ever shows up in your metrics. But they’ll only bring those ideas forward if they believe someone is going to listen.
Empathy for the constraints.
Listening doesn’t just uncover ideas. It uncovers obstacles.
Jason Lippert, CEO of Lippert Components, understood this. When he set out to transform his company’s culture, he didn’t start with a strategy deck. He conducted a series of leadership listening sessions. He visited every LCI facility with one goal: listen first, then share.
What he heard were the constraints. The things that made it harder for his people to do their jobs. And because he listened, he could actually do something about them. Those sessions surfaced hundreds of ideas to make facilities cleaner, safer, and better places to work.
That’s what empathy looks like in practice. Not a feeling but an action. You hear what’s in the way, and then you move it.
Engagement is falling. Leaders are talking more. The data says it isn’t working.
The answer might be simpler than anyone wants to admit.
Get better at listening to the truth instead of just giving it. Because how well you listen determines how well you connect. And connection is the key to leadership.
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About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft and The Sales Infrastructure. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best and the Optimistic Outlook.
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