Across a career, continuous learning is essential. I often find myself asking: What have I learned? And more importantly, what have I learned not only from success, but from failure?
Perhaps the lessons from failure are the most valuable of all.
With that thought as a backdrop, I am beginning a short four-part series on “Significant Learnings from Success and Failure.” My hope is that the next generation of leaders might glean something useful from my experiences—and perhaps use those lessons to become far better leaders than I ever was.
Principle #1: Listen First
My first principle of both leadership and, quite frankly, partnership development is simple:
Listen first, because speed to trust is material to getting the job done.
Too often, leaders seek to tell rather than influence. There is a dramatic difference. Telling is a one-way interaction, and it typically comes with a full set of baked-in assumptions. It can feel efficient—at least initially. I have seen this play out countless times.
But speed of execution is not the same as speed to trust.
Execution may be fast, but when it is built on incomplete information, it can also be highly inaccurate. And in the midst of this leadership style, something else happens: people learn to be compliant. Sometimes, they even learn to be fearful.
Contrarian views disappear. Different perspectives are dismissed. People quickly figure out what the leader wants to hear. And once an organization has been conditioned this way, no matter how often the leader asks for input, the answers tend to be limited to what “tickles their ears.” The result is an illusion of alignment rather than genuine engagement.
Listening First
Truly listening is slower at the beginning. But leaders who practice it are sending a very different message: You matter. Your experience matters. Your perspective matters.
That creates something incredibly valuable in any organization: diversity of thought. And diversity of thought generally produces better-informed strategies, fewer blind spots, and ultimately greater efficiency in execution.
In other words, listening first can be a slower start—but a faster, more precise ending.
Listening also builds trust. The more quickly trust is established, whether in leadership, institutional partnerships, or sales, the more consultative the relationship becomes. The conversation moves beyond positions and transactions toward shared understanding, problem-solving, and ultimately, shared outcomes.
That is why I have never been particularly interested in selling a “thing”—a widget, a product, or a service—disconnected from impact and value. We all have to sell things. I’m just not particularly interested in the process of procuring pencils.
What interests me is value creation.
My approach has always been to begin with the desired impact and work backward from there. What are you trying to accomplish? What matters to your institution? What are the challenges standing in the way? What do each of us bring to the table that could help create a better outcome? That is a very different kind of exchange.
Each party brings something of value. Each party listens. Each party learns. And when that happens, something greater than a transaction can emerge. That is where the magic happens.
But it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Listening to a partner’s needs, goals, challenges, and aspirations is not unlike the same principle leaders should practice within their own organizations. The time invested in genuinely listening is itself an exchange of value. My time is valuable, and I offer it to you because I genuinely want to understand.
I also believe that if what I bring to the relationship can help make you and your institution more successful, you will, in turn, help make me successful in what I value. That is partnership. That is leadership. And it begins with listening.
Listen first. It may be a slower start, but it is almost always a faster and much more precise way to get where you are trying to go.
