Category: performance

The Promise We Break Most Often


The strongest form of accountability isn’t to your boss. It’s to yourself.

I still remember a conversation with a young manager many years ago. He had walked into my office carrying a notebook filled with plans.

“I don’t understand myself,” he confided, almost apologetically. “Every New Year I make a list. I promise myself I’ll exercise regularly, read more, spend time with my family, learn a new skill…” He then smiled sheepishly. “By March, I’ve broken most of those promises. Even though I had genuinely meant every word when I wrote those goals.”

I laughed at that. “So have millions of others. Including myself when I was your age.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Tell me,” I asked, “if your Managing Director asked you to submit a report by Monday, would you?  Or if your biggest customer expected you at a meeting at ten o’clock?” Or if your child was waiting for you at the school annual function?”

“Of Course! I would do all of those and on time.”

I smiled, “So you’re very good at keeping promises.”

He looked confused. “No,” he replied. “I just told you I’m terrible at it.”

I reassured him, ” I would say you’re excellent at keeping promises to other people. You just struggle to keep promises to your own self.”

He looked at me for a long moment before quietly admitting, “I’ve never thought about it that way.”

Well to be frank, neither had I, until years earlier when someone had challenged me with the same question. The truth is, most of us don’t lose confidence because we fail. We lose confidence because we repeatedly break our own word.

Every time we say to ourself, ‘I’ll start tomorrow,’ and tomorrow becomes next week… Every time we promise ourselves, we’ll make time for our health, our family, our learning or our dreams… and then quietly move them to the bottom of the list…

Something invisible starts happening. Our self-trust begins to erode. Others may still trust us. Our colleagues may admire our reliability. Our clients may praise our commitment. But somewhere inside, we begin to doubt ourselves. Not because we lack ability. But because we’ve stopped believing our own promises.

I came out of my reverie with a start; my colleague was looking at me thoughtfully. “So, accountability isn’t really about someone checking up on me?” he asked.

I shook my head. “That’s compliance. Accountability is much more personal. It is choosing to become someone whose word matters—even when no one else is listening.”

As he stood up to leave, he closed his notebook and smiled, “I think I’ve been writing goals. What I really needed was to start keeping promises.”

That conversation has stayed with me ever since. The older I grow, the more I realise that confidence is not built through motivational speeches or inspirational books. It is built quietly. One kept promise at a time. Perhaps that is why integrity is such a powerful word. It doesn’t begin with how faithfully we honour our commitments to others. It begins with how faithfully we honour the commitments we make to ourselves.

Because the person listening most carefully to every promise you make… is you.

In musing…..                                            Shakti Ghosal

#accountability, #Integrity, #selfpromise, #goalkeeping

Beyond Resilience: Some Reflections on India’s Economic Story


I found the Chief Economic Adviser’s article on the subject both reassuring and well argued. It reminds us that India’s economy today is certainly stronger than it was during earlier crises. Better macroeconomic management, diversified energy sources, healthy foreign exchange reserves and timely policy interventions have undoubtedly made us more resilient.

Yet, as I finished reading, I was left with a few thoughts.

The first is that we should be careful not to confuse resilience with invincibility.

This particular crisis ended before it could become truly prolonged. Oil prices eased, shipping stabilised and global markets regained their footing. Had the conflict continued for another few months, the pressures on inflation, fiscal balances and household budgets would have been much harder to manage. Good policy deserves credit, but so does good fortune.

Secondly, the article understandably highlights the role of government.

 Equally deserving of recognition, in my view, is the quiet transformation of Indian industry. Over the past decade, businesses have learnt to diversify suppliers, manage inventories better, hedge risks and adapt far more quickly than before. Much of India’s resilience today rests as much in its boardrooms as in North Block.

The article also reminded me that our biggest vulnerabilities remain largely unchanged. We continue to depend heavily on imported crude oil, fertilisers, semiconductor components and several critical minerals. These are strategic dependencies that no amount of short-term policy management can fully offset.

Perhaps the most important takeaway, however, lies elsewhere.

The Gulf conflict is unlikely to be the last major disruption we face. If anything, geopolitical tensions, climate events, cyber risks and technological disruptions are becoming the new normal. The question, therefore, is not whether India can survive the next crisis. It is whether we can prepare for it before it arrives.

That, to me, should be the next chapter of India’s economic story.

We need to move beyond resilience and build anticipation. Greater energy independence, stronger manufacturing capabilities, lower logistics costs, globally competitive skills and deeper investments in future technologies will matter even more than crisis management. Equally important is developing the ability to think in scenarios rather than forecasts—to prepare for multiple possible futures instead of assuming that tomorrow will resemble yesterday.

The article rightly celebrates how far India has come. I would simply add that the journey ahead will demand a different mindset. The winners of the next decade will not necessarily be those who recover fastest from shocks, but those who see them coming first and are ready before everyone else.

That, I believe, is the real opportunity before India. It is no longer enough to be resilient. We must become anticipatory.

In musing….. Shakti Ghosal

The Most Important Person You’ll Ever Lead


‘Leadership doesn’t begin with managing people. It begins with understanding the person in the mirror.’

I recall a conversation of several years back.

It was late evening and I was preparing to go home. Hearing a knock, I looked up to see a colleague standing outside my glass door, smiling. He was one of the bright managers from our Supply Chains division. As I gestured him to a chair, I sensed something was on his mind. After the usual pleasantries and how things were going at work, I asked what I could do for him.

“Sir, while I seem to be doing okay at work based on the feedback of my Divisional Head, deep down I fear I’m failing as a leader,” he blurted out.

” Hmm! That’s a strong statement,” I replied. “What makes you say that?”

He sighed, “I am trying to be a better leader. I’ve read leadership books. I keep trying new leadership techniques…… but somehow I feel a sense of inadequacy and a lack of being authentic.”

Pondering over what I had just heard, I asked, “When was the last time you studied yourself?”

My colleague frowned. After a few moments he admitted, “I don’t think I ever have.”

“You know,” I said, “most of us believe awareness means noticing what’s happening around us. For instance, the market. Our competitors. Our customers. Our bosses. We become experts at observing everyone else’s behaviour. We know exactly what our colleagues need to improve. We notice the habits holding others back. We can often predict how someone else will react in a meeting. But ask us why we react defensively to criticism… why certain conversations drain our energy… why we repeat the same mistakes… and suddenly the answers become less clear.”

He looked at me for a few moments before replying, “So you’re saying I’ve been looking in the wrong direction?”

“Not the wrong direction. Just one direction.”

Looking out of the window, he said softly, almost to himself, “I’ve been trying to model myself on people I’ve admired.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with admiration,” I said. “The problem begins when admiration turns into imitation. We can borrow someone’s ideas. We can learn from someone’s experience.  But we can never build our leadership by becoming a copy of someone else’s story.”

There was a silence. Then the colleague asked quietly, “So what does awareness really look like?”

I realised that we were now entering the deep end of our conversation. I said, “It is knowing your strengths without becoming arrogant. Recognising your weaknesses without becoming discouraged. Understanding your patterns before they begin to define you.”

I concluded by saying, “It is having the courage to ask not, ‘How do I become like them?’ but ‘Who am I becoming?’“

As my colleague got up to leave, he paused at the door and said, “I’ve spent years trying to improve my leadership. Perhaps I should spend more time understanding the leader.”

The conversation stayed with me. The older I grow, the more I realise that personal growth rarely begins with learning something new. More often, it begins with seeing ourselves a little more clearly.

Self-awareness is perhaps the only mirror that becomes clearer the longer we are willing to look into it. Leadership is not the journey from ignorance to knowledge. It is the journey from unconsciousness to awareness. Because the greatest breakthroughs in life seldom come from changing who we are. They come from discovering who we have been all along. Perhaps the most important meeting you will ever have is not with your team, your boss, or your client. It is the quiet conversation you have with yourself.

Is that meeting long overdue?

Reflections…..                                 Shakti Ghosal

The Forest We Never Fully See


About a year back, I happened to sit at the lunch table with one of the participants of a Leadership workshop I was conducting. Let us call him Arun.

As I tried to engage him in a polite conversation, I found him to be withdrawn and seemingly lost in some other thoughts. When I enquired about this, he blurted out, “Professor, I was trying to relate what you said in class to my interaction with a colleague. Every time we discuss a new project, she starts asking so many questions. By the time she’s finished, we’ve lost momentum.”

I asked, “What would you say makes her do that? Is it something she perceives about you?”

Arun smiled, “Probably that I move too fast.”

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“Could it be that both of you right?” So saying, I took out my pen and drew a rough sketch on a piece of paper.

“Imagine a large forest,” I said. “Now imagine two people standing at different windows overlooking that forest. One person sees a waterfall. The other sees a mountain trail. Both are describing the same forest. But neither is seeing the whole picture.”

Arun leaned forward, “So you’re saying that’s what happens at work?”

“Every day,” I said. “We often assume that because we share an office, a company, a language, or even a country, we share the same perspective. But we don’t.

Each of us arrives at work carrying years of our very own specific experiences, beliefs, successes, disappointments, cultures, family influences and personal values. We may be looking at the same challenge. But we are never looking from the same window.

Arun was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “So when I think she’s slowing things down, she may think she’s reducing risk.”

“Exactly.”

Arun nodded slowly, understanding dawning on his face, “And when she thinks I’m rushing, I may simply be focused on opportunity.”

The conversation shifted. We stopped talking about who was right and started talking about what each person could see that the other could not. That’s when something interesting happened. The earlier uncertainty seemed to disappear, curiosity taking its place.

I have noticed that many workplace conflicts begin with a simple assumption: “If I see it this way, everyone else should see it this way too.”

But diversity is not simply about nationality, gender, age, language or background. It is about perspective. It is about recognising that another person’s life has given them a view of the world that is different from ours. And that can be valuable precisely because it is different. The irony is that organisations spend enormous amounts of money searching for innovation, yet innovation is often hiding inside the perspectives we dismiss too quickly. If everyone in a meeting thinks the same way, the discussion may be comfortable. But it is unlikely to be transformative.

Before we left, Arun said something that stayed with me. “You know Professor, I spent the entire time of our interaction trying to convince her to look through my window. Maybe I should spend more time looking through hers.”

That, perhaps, is the real gift of diversity. Not that it makes agreement easier. But that it makes understanding deeper. The world does not need more people defending their windows. It needs more people willing to explore the forest. And every time we replace judgment with curiosity, comparison with appreciation, and certainty with learning, the forest becomes a little larger than we imagined.

What if the next breakthrough in your life is waiting in a perspective you have not yet taken the time to understand?

In musing……                                                     Shakti Ghosal

What If…….?


I recall a conversation from many years back. During an overseas visit, I was having coffee with a colleague and I found him looking frustrated and confused.

He pushed aside his tray and said, “I don’t get it. We’ve analysed the issue of increasing our business share from this market from every angle. We’ve got the data, the reports, the projections. Yet we seem to be still stuck.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” I replied.

He looked at me, uncertainty writ on his face, “How can having more data be the problem?”

“Because sometimes,” I said, “we can become so busy looking for the right answer that we stop looking for other possibilities.”

He smiled politely—the kind of smile people give when they think you have said something impractical, “So what’s the alternative? Ignore the facts?”

“Not at all. Facts matter. But facts tell us what is. Creativity asks what could be.” That seemed to catch his attention. I related a story.

“In the 1970s, a scientist at 3M was trying to create a super-strong adhesive. The adhesive was weak. By conventional standards, the experiment was a disappointment. It seemed a failure. That’s exactly how most people saw it. But years later, someone else looked at the same ‘failed’ adhesive and saw a different possibility. The result was the Post-it Note.”

My colleague laughed, “So one of the world’s most successful office products began as a mistake?”

“Or perhaps,” I said, “it began as a possibility that nobody had noticed yet.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then he said something interesting.

“You know, in our meetings we’re always asking, ‘Will this work?’ Maybe we should first ask, ‘What else could this become?'”

Now we were getting somewhere. The truth is that most organisations reward certainty. We admire people who have answers. We celebrate expertise. We fill spreadsheets, analyse trends and minimise risks. All these are important. But the future is rarely created by these certain aspects alone. It is often created by someone willing to explore a possibility that doesn’t yet fit neatly into a presentation slide.

The more we talked, the more I realised that creativity is not about being artistic. It is not about painting, music or design. Possibilities which flow out of a creative mindset is the courage to see beyond the obvious. It is the willingness to ask a different question. It is the ability to sit with uncertainty long enough for a new idea to emerge.

Before we left, my colleague said, “Maybe we’ve been trying too hard to find the right path.”

“Perhaps,” I replied. “Sometimes the breakthrough comes when you stop looking for the path and start exploring the landscape.”

A few days later he called, “We’ve found a completely different solution. We stopped trying to prove what was possible and started imagining it. Imagining the end goal, without getting enmeshed with how to make that happen, allowed new possibilities to show up.”

That conversation stayed with me. Because in a world overflowing with information, knowledge is no longer the rarest resource. Possibility is. And every great innovation, every breakthrough and every new beginning starts with a simple question:

“What if……..?”

In Musing…….                                                                       Shakti Ghosal

Four Seconds That Changed a Leader


More than a decade after my coaching certification, certain ideas still return to me with surprising clarity. One of them is deceptively simple:

The difference between reacting and responding.

Most leaders intellectually understand this distinction. Few recognise how profoundly it shapes their daily impact.

I was reminded of this during a coaching conversation with a senior executive — let me call him Raghav. Raghav was known for his brilliance and intensity. Quick thinker. Decisive. Deeply committed. But his team described him using another word, offered cautiously and repeatedly: “Intimidating.”

When he came into coaching, his concern was framed differently. “My team has become strangely silent,” he told me. “Meetings lack energy. No one challenges anything. It’s frustrating.”

Frustration, I have learned, is often an interesting doorway.

“What usually happens when someone disagrees with you?” I asked. He looked puzzled. “Nothing unusual. We discuss.”

But leaders rarely observe their own behavioural patterns with accuracy. Our reactions are invisible to us precisely because they are so familiar. So, I asked him to walk me through a recent meeting.

He described a discussion where a junior manager questioned a proposal. As he narrated the incident, something subtle appeared — not in his words, but in his tone. “I explained why the idea wouldn’t work,” he said.

Then after a pause: “Perhaps a bit sharply.” “What do you think the manager experienced in that moment?” I asked. He shrugged. “Direct feedback.” “And if we asked them?” Silence.

The human mind is wonderfully efficient at justifying its own reactions.

**

In coaching, reactions are rarely the real story. Triggers are.

“What specifically triggered your response?” I asked. “The suggestion didn’t make sense.” “Was it the quality of the idea,” I continued, “or the fact that it challenged yours?”

That question lingered longer. Eventually he smiled — the kind that signals reluctant insight. “I don’t like being questioned in areas I know well.”

There it was. A deeply human pattern. Trigger → irritation → sharp dismissal.

Repeated often enough, reactions harden into leadership style. Unexamined long enough, they reshape culture.

We explored a small experiment. “Next time you feel that familiar irritation,” I said, “don’t change your opinion. Don’t soften your standards. Simply pause.”

“Pause?”

“Four seconds,” I suggested. “One breath. No words.” He laughed. “That sounds trivial.” “It is trivial,” I agreed. “And extremely difficult.”

Because reactions are automated. Responses are chosen.

**

Several weeks later, Raghav returned with an observation that genuinely surprised him. “The meetings feel different,” he said.

“What changed?”

“I haven’t changed my decisions,” he clarified. “But I’ve started noticing the moment before I speak.”

“And?”

“The irritation is still there,” he admitted. “But the pause stops me from firing.” That single gap — barely a few seconds — had altered the emotional climate of his interactions.

People spoke more. Defensiveness reduced. Energy returned. Nothing structural had changed. Only awareness.

**

Reacting is effortless because it is borrowed from the past — old patterns, old triggers, old conditioning.

Responding requires presence. Choice. Consciousness.

Who would imagine that leadership transformation might sometimes begin not with strategy, but with something far smaller? One breath. Four seconds.

Just enough space for wisdom to enter where habit once ruled.

In Musing……                                                                                           Shakti Ghosal

The Promise No One Else Enforces


A decade after my executive coaching certification, one idea continues to stay with me: Accountability is rarely about others. It is about the promises we make to ourselves.

Not the corporate version of deadlines, dashboards, and reviews. Something quieter. More personal.

A simple question: Who holds us accountable for the things that truly matter?

The uncomfortable answer: we do.

**

Some time ago, a senior leader — let’s call him Arvind — walked into my office. Highly capable. Well respected. Clearly exhausted.

“I’m working harder than ever,” he said, “but everything feels stuck.”

Experience has taught me that “everything” usually has a centre of gravity.

“What feels most stuck?” I asked.

“My restructuring initiative,” he replied. “Everyone agrees it’s necessary. But it’s just not happening.”

“What’s stopping it?”

“The usual,” he sighed. Quarterly pressures. Reviews. Endless fires. Bad timing.

Logical. Reasonable. Entirely human.

But then I asked him three questions:

“If the Chairman had mandated this with a deadline — would it still be pending?”
“Of course not.”

“If your compensation depended on it?”
“Would have been done already.”

“If your team’s survival required it?”
“ Then, I would have done it yesterday.”

And there it was. The barrier wasn’t capability, clarity, or even time. It was consequence. Nothing happened if he delayed. No penalty. No discomfort. No urgency.

**

“Whose goal is this restructuring?” I asked.

“Mine.”

“Imposed?”

“No.”

“Do you believe in it?”

“Completely.”

“Then what agreement have you made with yourself about it?”

Silence. Then a smile of recognition. “None.”

**

Many of us confuse intention with commitment.

We say:

• I should do this
• I need to get to that
• I’ve been meaning to…

But progress rarely responds to “should.”

“What if,” I suggested, “you treated this not as a project — but as a promise?” Something you either honour or break. Not endlessly postpone.

**

“What’s the next visible action?” I asked.

“Announcing it to my leadership team.”

“When?”

“…Friday.”

“And how would you like me to support your accountability?” That question matters. Accountability imposed feels like control. Accountability invited becomes partnership.

“Ask me next week,” he said. “And challenge me if I haven’t done it.”

**

The following Tuesday he returned, noticeably lighter. “It’s done.”

“What changed?”

“I stopped treating it as something I should do,” he said, “and started treating it as something I had said I would do.”

A small shift. A profound one.

**

The most important commitments in our lives rarely come with external enforcement. No one penalises postponed courage. No dashboard tracks delayed growth. And yet, these commitments shape everything.

Accountability is not a management technique. It is a quiet act of integrity —an agreement between who we are today and who we intend to become.

**

Curious to hear your thoughts: 👉 Where have you seen self-accountability make the biggest difference in leadership or life?

In Musing……… Shakti Ghosal

Inside the Box & getting out of it


“I don’t understand why I have to deal with him,” Arjun snapped, pacing the room. “He’s impossible. Defensive. Disrespectful. Always pushing back.”

Across the table, Kavya watched quietly. “You seem tired,” she said.

“Tired? I’m exhausted. I try to be fair. Professional. But with people like him, you have to be firm.”

“People like him?” she asked gently.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe you’re in the box.”

Arjun stopped pacing. “In the what?”

“The box,” she repeated. “It’s what happens when someone stops being a person and becomes a problem.”

He frowned. “He is a problem.”

Kavya didn’t argue. “Tell me about your last conversation with him.”

“I was clear. Direct. I told him his work wasn’t up to standard. He got defensive immediately.”

“How was your tone?”

“Professional.”

“How did you feel?”

Arjun hesitated. “…Annoyed. Honestly, I was already fed up before the meeting even began.”

Kavya nodded. “That’s the box.”

He looked at her, irritated now. “So this is my fault?”

“No,” she said softly. “That’s the tricky part. When we’re in the box, we’re not trying to be wrong. We feel justified. Righteous, even. But we stop seeing the other person’s humanity.”

“He still behaved badly.”

“Maybe. But inside the box, something subtle changes in us. Our voice hardens. Curiosity disappears. We listen to reply, not to understand. The other person feels it — even if we say all the ‘right’ words.”

Arjun looked away.

“And then,” she continued, “they react to our coldness. They defend. They resist. They shut down. And we walk away saying, See? I knew he was difficult.”

The room fell silent.

“So it’s a loop,” Arjun said quietly.

“Yes. A self-fulfilling one.”

He sank into a chair. “I didn’t even consider what he might be dealing with. I just saw poor performance.”

“That’s the box,” Kavya said again. “He became an obstacle to your goals. Not a person with pressures, fears, or a story you don’t know.”

Arjun’s voice was softer now. “So getting out means… what? Being nice?”

“No. It means seeing clearly. You can still disagree. Still hold standards. But you do it while remembering — this is a human being, not a hurdle in my way.”

He exhaled slowly. “And if he’s in the box about me too?”

She smiled faintly. “Then someone has to step out first.”

Arjun sat with that. The anger that had filled the room felt smaller now — replaced by something heavier, but cleaner.

“Maybe,” he said at last, “I’ve been fighting a problem… instead of talking to a person.”

Kavya nodded. “That realization is the door out.”

In musing……. Shakti Ghosal

**

Acknowledgement: ‘Leadership & Self Deception: Getting out of the box’ – The Arbinger Institute

The Perspective & Motivation model afflicting each one of us…..


We meet others as a headline.

We meet ourselves as a full autobiography.

So we compress people into labels—rude, careless, incompetent.

And we expand ourselves into explanations—pressure, timing, constraints, intent.

This is the Perspective & Motivation Attribution Model.

From the outside, a person looks like a trait.

From the inside, a person feels like a situation.

Their one act becomes their identity.

Our one act becomes an exception.

Their failure becomes “who they are.”

Our failure becomes “what happened to us.”

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

our reasoning is often not a search for what is true—

it is a search for what is forgivable.

The mind is not just a storyteller.

It is also a lawyer.

Wisdom begins when we offer others the same context, we demand for ourselves—

and hold ourselves to the same standards we casually apply to others.

So, what could be the road map forward?

Awareness is the start of moving forward. We start by noticing Perspective & Motivation in folks around us- through their articulations and behaviour. We then turn the searchlight onto our own selves. And we become observers of our own Perspective & Motivation afflictions…….

In Musing…….. Shakti Ghosal

How to improve Power Listening in today’s Disruptive World


Introduction

In today’s dynamic and disruptive world, where change is the only constant, the ability to listen deeply and effectively—what we call ‘Power Listening’—has become an essential leadership and personal development skill. To many of us, Listening occurs as a passive process. No one notices when we tune off, we also retain the luxury of judging what we are hearing. This is also why Listening is a complex and demanding skill that needs conscious effort and self-awareness. I have always found it difficult to listen to what is being said with no intention, no judgment, no right or wrong.

In a landscape characterized by rapid technological advancements, shifting economic paradigms, and evolving workplace dynamics, power listening enables leaders, professionals, and individuals to navigate complexities with greater clarity, empathy, and strategic foresight.

According to Zenger and Folkman (2016) in their Harvard Business Review article What Great Listeners Actually Do, great listening goes beyond simply being silent while others speak. It involves active engagement, thoughtful questioning, and creating a safe space for open dialogue. Similarly, in The Power of Listening in Leadership (Forbes, 2021), Kevin Kruse emphasizes that effective listening strengthens leadership presence and fosters trust in professional relationships.

Understanding the Challenges of Listening

Despite its fundamental role in communication, listening is often overshadowed by speaking. Many assume they are good listeners, yet, as I have realized through personal introspection, listening is fraught with unconscious biases, preconceptions, and cognitive distractions. Each individual listens for different reasons and in unique ways, influenced by past experiences, emotions, and personal filters.

Reflecting on my own listening tendencies, I recognize that my ability to listen deeply is not always consistent. My engagement in a conversation depends largely on three factors: (1) my genuine interest and curiosity in the subject matter, (2) the perceived relevance and importance of the topic to me, and (3) the significance of the speaker in my personal and professional life. In the absence of these factors, I have observed a decline in my listening quality, often succumbing to perceptual blocks such as impatience, judgment, and the urge to prepare my response rather than truly absorbing the speaker’s message.

The Value of Power Listening

Power listening goes beyond hearing words—it involves deep engagement, empathy, and a conscious effort to understand the speaker’s perspective. I have personally found that when practiced effectively, power listening yields several benefits:

  1. Building Trust and Confidence: A powerful listener enhances the self-worth of others, creating an environment of psychological safety where individuals feel valued and heard.
  2. Enhancing Leadership Effectiveness: Leaders who listen powerfully cultivate stronger relationships, inspire loyalty, and encourage collaboration. Employees and stakeholders gravitate towards those who make them feel understood.
  3. Facilitating Problem-Solving and Innovation: Power listening fosters a collaborative and open atmosphere, enabling teams to engage in meaningful dialogue and address complex challenges effectively.
  4. Encouraging a Growth Mindset: When leaders listen without judgment, they instill confidence in others, encouraging a culture of learning, experimentation, and continuous improvement.

A Plan to Enhance Power Listening Skills

One might ask the question, ‘So what kind of a plan one needs to become a power listener?’ My plan included the following steps:

  1. Develop Self-Awareness: I continuously assessed my natural listening tendencies, acknowledged biases, and consciously worked to overcome them.
  2. Identify Communication Gaps: By reflecting on daily interactions, I could recognize patterns where my listening faltered and I needed to refocus back.
  3. Practice Active Listening: I needed to implement the following techniques in my conversations:
    1. Attentiveness: Focus on the speaker’s words, emotions, and underlying intent.
    1. Empathy: Place myself in the speaker’s position, avoiding premature judgment.
    1. Validation: Reflect back to the speaker meaningful insights to acknowledge and appreciate the speaker’s perspective.
    1. Mental Clarity: Train myself to resist formulating responses while listening.
    1. Patience: Allow space for the speaker to elaborate without interruption.
    1. Encouragement: Reinforce the speaker’s strengths and motivate action.

The Emotional Impact of Being Heard

Listening is not just a transactional activity—it is deeply emotional and relational. When I am truly listened to, I experience a profound sense of connection, self-worth, and trust. The act of being heard or having ‘being gotten’ fulfills an intrinsic human need, fostering intimacy and mutual respect. Philosophers have long argued that being listened to is one of the most powerful affirmations of one’s existence. It provides the confidence to articulate thoughts, process challenges, and move forward with clarity and purpose.

Conclusion

In an era where distractions are rampant and attention spans are shrinking, power listening stands as a critical skill that differentiates effective leaders and impactful professionals. It is a skill that must be cultivated with intentionality, self-reflection, and consistent practice. By refining our listening abilities, we could aspire to become a more empathetic, perceptive, and influential leader—one who not only hears but truly understands and empowers others. In doing so, one would contribute to a more engaged, collaborative, and resilient world.

In Learning……                                                   Shakti Ghosal

References

  • Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2016). What Great Listeners Actually Do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org
  • Kruse, K. (2021). The Power of Listening in Leadership. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com

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