I wish I could say I always listen well. I don’t. In fact, I make some of my dumbest life choices when I’m not listening to God. I am in close proximity to God. I know that He is talking to me. I just cut Him off before He can finish, assume I got it, and leap without truly listening.
I learned this lesson during a youth conference years ago. Our group of sophomores was doing a prayer exercise where we had a ball of yarn. We would hold one end of the string and pass it across to somebody else in a circle formation, and then tell that person what to pray for. Prayer requests were things like praying for our schools, my sick uncle, our youth group, and so on.
At one point, one of the students, Matt, passed the yarn across to another student, Lauren, and told her what to pray for. Lauren began a very elaborate prayer that went something like this:
“Dear God, please help people be more careful. Let them not do such dangerous things. Let them think things through before they do them, being mindful of their surroundings, and practice safety first, no matter what…”
It was about that moment when Matt interrupted and said, ”Um, Lauren, I said pray for the unsaved, not the unsafe.”
I still smile when I think about it. Lauren wasn’t trying to be funny. She was trying to listen. She simply heard what she expected to hear. And I realized how often I do the same thing. I listen for what fits my assumptions instead of what is actually being said.
Leadership has its own version of this. People try to tell us something important. They bring concerns, ideas, hesitations, or quiet signs of strain. They are giving us truth, and we hear a version that fits the story we already believe. We assume we know the issue. We assume we know the solution. We assume we understand the person. And like Lauren in that prayer circle, we charge forward with confidence based on a message we never fully received.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that listening is one of the most spiritual acts of leadership. It requires humility. It requires attention. It requires slowing down long enough to hear the full truth, not the convenient truth. In fact, I would argue that good listening is not just something that enhances your leadership. It is a leadership responsibility.
This month, as we begin a new year, I want to challenge you the way I am challenging myself. Listen with patience. Listen without rushing to fix. Listen without assuming you already know what someone is trying to say. Listen for the quiet parts. Listen for the thing beneath the thing.
When leaders listen well, people feel understood. When people feel understood, trust grows. And when trust grows, teams move with unity that cannot be manufactured any other way.
So take time to hear the full sentence before you act on the first word. The unsaved and the unsafe are very different. And sometimes slowing down long enough to listen makes all the difference.
Tom
#leadershipdevelopment #listening #faith