How My First Leadership Role Taught Me to Listen To Silence

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If you have ever had the responsibility to lead a group or team of people, you know what it’s like when your team goes silent. This happened to me in my first leadership role.

I was leading a business location (one of three) with 165 employees, managers, and supervisors and was brimming with ideas to influence the culture and inspire the team.

I started sharing my ideas with people and expected some excitement and receptivity, but instead, the first few manager meetings were silent. The blank stares, nodding, and absence of contribution were deafening.

When people did speak, the tone was one of “yes, that sounds great, but….” Finally, my curiosity kicked in. What did the ‘but’ mean? What’s causing everyone to feel reluctant and stay silent about it?

I stopped talking and started listening.

Those were the first questions I asked in our next meeting. I discovered the leader in the role before me (for seven years) never listened to anyone’s suggestions or asked for input on decisions.

Ever.

It was his way or the highway, often belittling those who stood up to him or tried to make changes. Employees were scared of him and concluded the top leaders in the organization supported his style and decisions. The result was zero trust and flat morale.

The more employees I spoke to, the more I realized I was untangling a nest of emotion, distrust, and resignation.

Past Events

At the time, one of my favorite teachers was Tom Peters. I devoured his book on In Search of Excellence and the ones that followed.

One of his core teachings at that time was MBWA. Management By Walking Around. In other words, get out of your damn office and out on the floor where people were working, learn the real issues, and then resolve them.

There was an example of a company trying to make a significant change in one book, but they couldn’t. Distrust was causing employees to resist the effort.

They uncovered a past adverse event was the culprit and took responsibility for it. By opening the dialogue around it, they could move past the emotions it caused, dissolving the resistance. From there, they took continuous action to rebuild trust and began to move forward successfully.

The lesson: You can’t simply change leadership and expect morale to change for the better. You must be accountable for the adverse events in the organization that has impacted the relationship with employees.

It was similar to our situation and seemed clear that facing the past with this team might be a good solution. I’d never done something like this and was nervous about how to approach it.

Just saying it and promising to move on wasn’t enough. I knew I had to genuinely get to the emotion of it and do it as a group.

The Managers

The first meeting was with the managers and supervisor group, which was 23 people total.

I shared what I’d learned over the past month of speaking to people. I wanted to do the same with the group to address the feelings around the lack of accountability, support, and disregard for what employees were thinking and feeling.

Silence. Except for this time, the silence was alive.

Finally, one of the managers spoke up, sharing a mix of emotions around the idea, which resonated with the group. For the next hour, many shared their frustrations and vented.

In the end, when it seemed all talked out, I thanked them for being candid. Acknowledged the broken environment and asked for support in changing it, which was critical for moving forward. I couldn’t do it alone.

I made no promises, only a commitment: they will be a part of each step along the way and, I will always listen and be there to support them.

They agreed to support the change. It was the first time we genuinely connected as a team, and it felt like the heaviness was gone.

Now for the big group!

The Employees

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t petrified of what I was about to do.

The turnout for the meeting was extremely high, with 120 employees in attendance. I knew many employees heard about the manager’s meeting and were there to see what would happen.

They sat silent, staring at me expectantly. I remember my kneecaps shaking as I stood there and started to speak. I shared the highlights of what I heard from them during the one-on-one meetings I had with many of them.

As I acknowledged the past events that impacted morale and dissolved trust, many faces looked shocked to hear me say it. When I finished, I asked for comments or feedback, not knowing what to expect.

The silence lasted for a few minutes until finally, someone spoke. She acknowledged that it was nice to hear management recognize and admit past mistakes. For the next 25 minutes, people spoke up and shared — echoing the frustration of the past; hopes for the future; many were thankful to hear the candid discussion. The energy lifted.

As I wrapped up the meeting, I made no promises and instead committed to building back trust. I acknowledged it would take time and asked for their cooperation, and most importantly — to share when they have an issue or problem instead of staying silent.

I closed by asking them to raise their hand if they were willing to support us in the process — almost every hand in the group went up.

The “but” was gone.

It took two years to turn that scenario around and rebuild the trust and morale into a work environment that, in the end, experienced record low turnover compared to the two other locations.

Informed action was our primary driver as a leadership team during that time. And while it wasn’t a completely smooth transition, the team building that occurred as we made mistakes together was invaluable.

One of the biggest lessons for me as a leader was the direct experience that action does speak louder than words, the same way silence speaks volumes for those willing to listen.

These days when I hear a leader say that their team is OK with an upcoming change because they haven’t heard them say anything about it, I challenge their assumption.

I share ways to uncover the silence and get their team engaged in dialogue again, the crucial ingredient for achieving genuine change.

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