The Dramatic Listener: gets caught up in the emotion
Becomes absorbed in the emotional layer of the conversation and, as a result, loses track of parts of what's actually being said.
Leaders are trained in many things: strategy, budgeting, conflict management, and presenting. Listening rarely makes the curriculum. Yet few skills influence so many other aspects of leadership. If you don't listen, you don't understand your team. And if you don't understand your team, you risk making systematically worse decisions.
Oscar Trimboli, a deep listening expert and author of How to Listen, has spent years exploring what actually happens in conversations and why we find it so difficult to truly listen to other people.
400 vs. 125–175
We can process 400 words per minute. But we speak at only 125 to 175. That gap creates mental space. And that's exactly where many of us start preparing our next response instead of continuing to listen.
The 5 listening archetypes according to Trimboli
Trimboli describes four “Listening Villains” and contrasts them with the Deep Listener. These are less like fixed personality types and more like listening patterns we can fall into during a conversation.
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The Interrupting Listener: interrupts to solve
Interrupts and tries to solve the problem before the other person has finished speaking. The intention is often good, but it prevents the other person from fully developing their thought.
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The Lost Listener: mentally somewhere else
Physically present, mentally elsewhere. Hears the words but misses the meaning. Responses no longer quite match what was said. The other person notices the lack of attention.
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The Shrewd Listener: already solving the next problem
Appears to be listening carefully but is already analyzing, evaluating, and solving in their head. Their own interpretation gets ahead of what the other person is actually saying.
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The Deep Listener: understands
Listens not only to the words but also pays attention to meaning, emotion, and what isn't being said directly. Asks questions that show: I was really with you. This kind of listening is particularly valuable in leadership.
Why leaders don't listen even when they want to
Most leaders would probably say they listen. In practice, it often looks different. Three patterns play a particularly important role:
1. The pressure to have answers
Leaders are trained to solve problems. When someone comes to them with an issue, the instinct is often to help immediately. So while the other person is still talking, they're already searching for an answer.
At that point, attention shifts from understanding to solving. People can often tell when you're already preparing your response.
2. Our own internal noise
Everyone brings assumptions, judgments, and previous experiences into a conversation. They influence what we hear and how we interpret it. Information that doesn't fit our existing view may receive less attention without us consciously noticing.
Trimboli describes this phenomenon as “internal noise.” It's one of the biggest barriers to genuine listening: We aren't only hearing the other person. We're hearing our own interpretation at the same time.
3. Lack of training
Listening isn't simply something you're either good or bad at. It's a skill that can be trained. Many organizations invest heavily in presentation skills, communication, and persuasive delivery, but far less in systematic listening.
The result: a leadership world full of excellent transmitters and disastrous receivers.
The rules of deep listening
- Get comfortable with silence: The pause after someone speaks is part of the conversation. Fill it immediately, and you take away the space they need to develop their thought.
- Paraphrase instead of commenting: “What I'm hearing is ...” shows the other person what you understood and gives them a chance to correct you.
- Ask questions that open things up: Not “Was that difficult?” with a yes-or-no answer, but “What surprised you about it?”
- Phone away, laptop closed: Reading emails or responding to messages divides your attention. Good listening requires your full attention.
- Pay attention to what's left unsaid: What's emphasized? What's avoided? What comes up repeatedly? Those signals can be just as important as the words themselves.
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” — Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
What good listening makes possible in teams
Good listening doesn't automatically solve every team problem. But it creates conditions in which important information can become visible in the first place:
- It can support psychological safety by showing people that their perspective is being heard
- Problems can surface earlier because employees are more willing to speak up about what's not working
- Misunderstandings can be identified before they turn into conflicts or poor decisions
- Leaders get more context before making decisions
- Employees experience that their perspective isn't merely requested but genuinely considered
Listening doesn't mean agreeing with everything. It means fully understanding something before you evaluate it, make a decision, or disagree.
Read next
Part two looks at the concrete cost of not listening: what organizations lose when leaders talk instead of listen.
Read part 2: What not listening costs organizations →Sources: Trimboli (2022), How to Listen · Trimboli, The Four Villains of Listening · Trimboli, The 125/400 Rule · Covey (1989), The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People · Edmondson (1999), Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, Administrative Science Quarterly 44(2), 350–383.
Published June 2026