Leadership Influence Starts With Listening: The Communication Skill That Builds Cohesion
Great communicators know how to speak.Influential leaders know when to stop speaking and listen.
Because sometimes the insight a team needs is already in the room. It just hasn't been heard yet. We often associate influential communication with confidence, clarity, and the ability to deliver a compelling message. Those skills matter.
Some of the most influential leaders I've worked with demonstrate another capability: they know how to listen.They listen for what is being said, what is not being said, and what the team may need in order to move forward together.
This is where active listening becomes a leadership capability for cohesion.
Influence Begins With Understanding
In complex organizations, leaders hear many voices.
Some are loud. Some are confident. Others are quieter but may hold valuable insight about customers, colleagues, risk, operations, or emerging opportunities.
Strategic listening means resisting the temptation to respond only to the loudest voice. Instead, we become curious about what sits underneath the conversation.
Consider asking yourself:
What am I hearing repeatedly?
Whose perspective haven't I heard?
What assumptions might we be making?
What strengths already exist that we can build upon?
What question could help us see this differently?
Research by Avraham N. Kluger and Guy Itzchakov (2022) positions high-quality listening as a relational process connected to outcomes including trust, relationships, leadership, performance, and well-being. Their work also suggests that listening can create a sense of "togetherness" between speaker and listener.
That matters because people don't experience our leadership intentions.
They experience our leadership behaviors.
Listen for Strengths, Not Just Problems
There is another shift leaders can make: changing what we listen for. When something is not working, our instinct is often to ask: What's going wrong?
It is a necessary question, but not always the most powerful one.
A strengths-based leader might also ask:
"When have we handled something like this particularly well, and what were we doing then that we can use now?"
We haven't ignored the problem. We have expanded the conversation to include capability, resources, and possibility.
Kim S. Cameron's work on positive leadership emphasizes strengths and the value of positive relationships, communication, and meaning in creating conditions for extraordinary performance. This subtly changes the role of communication.
Instead of: "How do I convince them?"
we begin asking: "How do I help us discover the best path forward?"
That is influence without needing to have all the answers.
Listening Creates Space for What Needs to Be Said
One of the most important responsibilities of leadership is creating an environment where people can say what needs to be said, especially when it is difficult.
Amy C. Edmondson's foundational research on psychological safety describes it as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking and links psychological safety with team learning behavior. Think about what happens when someone raises a concern and the leader immediately interrupts, dismisses it, becomes defensive, or starts solving. Over time, people learn. They learn what is safe to discuss and what is better left unsaid.
Intentional listening sends a different message: Your perspective matters here.
And listening does not mean agreeing. A leader can listen deeply, acknowledge another perspective, ask questions, and still ultimately make a different decision.
Listening isn't agreement. It's respect.
Move From Transactional to Relational Communication
As leaders take on increasingly complex roles, communication has to evolve.
Transactional communication asks: What information do I need to deliver?
Relational communication also asks: What does this audience need in order to understand, contribute, and move forward?
That distinction is particularly important for leaders communicating across levels of an organization. The narrative that resonates in an executive discussion may need to be translated very differently for the team responsible for implementation.
Influential communication means adapting context, complexity, language, and level of detail while maintaining the integrity of the message. And you cannot adapt effectively without first listening.
Team Activity: The Strengths Listening Circle
Research by Guy Itzchakov and Avraham N. Kluger (2017) used Listening Circles to explore the effects of structured listening on workplace emotions and cognitions, supporting the value of intentionally creating opportunities for people to feel heard.
t your next team meeting, invest 10 to 15 minutes in strengthening relational connection.
Pair team members and ask: "Think about a time when this team was operating at its best. What strength did you see in the team, and what strength did you see in your partner?"
When the speaker finishes, the listener reflects: "What I heard you say was..."
Bring everyone back together and ask: "What strengths should we intentionally use more often in how we work together?"
Identify three to five strengths and select one observable behavior the team will intentionally practice over the next two weeks.
The Leadership Challenge
Influential communication is not about being the most polished speaker in the room.
It is about knowing when to speak, when to ask, and when to listen.
It means listening for meaning, communicating with context, recognizing strengths, asking better questions, and creating enough space for perspectives that might otherwise remain unheard.
Before your next important conversation, try replacing: "What do I need to say?"
with: "What do I need to understand before I speak?"
Sometimes the most influential voice in the room belongs to the leader who knows when not to use it.
References
Cameron, K. S. (2012). Positive leadership: Strategies for extraordinary performance (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
Itzchakov, G., & Kluger, A. N. (2017). Can holding a stick improve listening at work? The effect of Listening Circles on employees' emotions and cognitions. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 26(5), 663–676.
Kluger, A. N., & Itzchakov, G. (2022). The power of listening at work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9, 121–146.
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