Truly listening: the skill almost everyone thinks they possess

There is a skill that almost everyone thinks they have and that almost no one truly stops to question. It is called listening.

If you ask someone, “Do you know how to listen?” the answer will almost always be yes. Yet it is enough to observe any conversation—in the office, at home, during a meeting, or over coffee—to realize that it happens much more rarely than we imagine. Most people do not truly listen: they wait for their turn to speak, or they listen with a goal different from what they think, such as correcting, convincing, explaining, defending themselves, or proving they are right. While the other person is speaking, the movie of what we will say next has already started in our heads.

Yet true listening is something else.

Many think that listening simply means not interrupting, as if staying silent while the other person speaks were enough to say they have listened. In reality, silence alone guarantees nothing. One can remain silent and not listen at all, perhaps because we are busy mentally constructing our response or evaluating whether what the other person is saying is right or wrong, sensible or useless. In those moments, even if we are not speaking, we are not truly listening: we are simply waiting for our turn.

Truly listening requires something more difficult and less spontaneous: suspending one’s own point of view for a few moments and trying to enter, at least temporarily, into the other person’s perspective.

When someone speaks with us, they are always communicating two things at the same time. On one hand, there is the content of the words, what is explicitly said. On the other, there is the feeling that accompanies those words. Often, however, the content is only the surface. A collaborator saying “we can’t deliver this project on time” might be saying many other things: that they feel under pressure, that they don’t feel heard, that they fear making a mistake, or that the workload is unsustainable. If we only listen to the words, we lose half the message, and it is precisely in that invisible half that many of the conflicts and misunderstandings we encounter every day are born.

Curiously, this idea is not new at all. In the Indian tradition, the god of wisdom, Ganesha, is represented with very large ears. This is not an aesthetic detail: it is a symbol. Large ears indicate the ability to truly listen, to distinguish what is important from background noise, to grasp the deep meaning of words. In a sense, Ganesha reminds us of something we tend to forget in the world of work: wisdom is not born from those who speak the most, but from those who know how to listen best.

Yet here, an even more interesting truth emerges.

We cannot truly listen to others if we have not learned, first of all, to listen to ourselves.

Every conversation is also crossed by our internal reactions: agreement, disagreement, irritation, enthusiasm, impatience. If we are not aware of these reactions, we end up being guided by them without realizing it. We think we are listening to the other person, but in reality, we are filtering everything through our beliefs, our fears, or our judgments.

For this reason, listening is first and foremost an internal skill. It means noticing what is happening inside us while someone is speaking. It means recognizing our interpretations without letting them take control of the conversation. It means, in other words, developing 그 capacity for attention that allows one to remain truly present.

This applies even more to those with leadership responsibilities.

Every manager who manages people should develop this skill with great seriousness. Not because it is a kind or decorative soft skill, but because without listening, organizations stop functioning well. Without listening, problems arrive late, conflicts fester, ideas remain hidden, and collaborators slowly stop speaking.

On the contrary, when a leader knows how to truly listen, something very powerful happens: people feel seen, recognized, and therefore more willing to contribute. Defensiveness lowers, trust grows, and it becomes possible to face even difficult conversations.

That is why listening is not just a relational skill. It is a lever for the functioning of organizations.

Developing this ability changes the way we work with people, the way we manage conflicts, and the way we make decisions. But above all, it changes the quality of relationships, because when people feel truly heard, they begin to trust, and when there is trust, conversations that previously seemed difficult, if not impossible, become possible.

If while reading these lines you feel that this is one of the skills you truly need to develop, if you perceive that it could help you make a leap in quality in your relationships, your work, or your career, or if you recognize some of the situations of misunderstanding we have discussed, then perhaps it is worth stopping for a moment and learning to listen seriously.

And the same applies if you feel that your team also needs to develop this ability, because in organizations, listening is not a detail but a fundamental leadership skill.

Through coaching, team coaching, or corporate training programs, this art can be trained and developed over time. Because truly listening is not just a natural quality of a few, but an ability that can be cultivated. This is exactly where I could accompany you or your organization.

And when this happens, something truly changes.

Listening activates change.