SIAMO INSIGHTS: One idea. A closer look. Something to try.
Knowing What Good Leadership Takes
Ask a group of senior leaders what good leadership takes and the answers come quickly: empathy, clarity, courage, the ability to listen. Most of us know what good leadership looks like.
BCG’s Mind the Belief Gap surveyed 563 senior leaders across 11 markets. Forty-one percent named empathy as one of the top three leadership qualities. Only 16% said the senior leaders in their organization excel at it, a 25-percentage-point gap.
The survey can’t tell us what happens inside any one leader on any one day. What we can say from our own work is that knowing what a behavior looks like and using it under pressure are two different skills. Most leaders can describe good listening in detail. The difficulty arrives in the moment it’s needed: a colleague challenges your expertise, a decision is overdue, a conversation is likely to create more work. Listening well is easy on a calm Tuesday. It takes more when we’re defensive, tired, or without an answer.
What Gets Harder Under Pressure
Understanding gets a leader to the starting line. A leader can leave a session able to explain active listening and still interrupt in the next tense meeting, and the reason usually makes sense from the inside. The interruption feels efficient. Or it feels like protecting credibility.
Those reasons are worth paying attention to, because they hold an expectation about what will happen if the behavior is used right then. Asking a question will look like uncertainty. Listening will sound like agreement. Saying “I need more information” will cost standing. Sometimes the expectation is accurate and sometimes it isn’t, and we rarely find out, because we don’t test it.
This matters for teams, too. People learn what to expect from each other by watching what happens when things get hard. If a behavior the team says it values only shows up on calm days, people notice, and they plan around it. They may hold back the difficult news, or arrive at a meeting ready to defend their view.
Development that stays at the level of knowing leaves this untouched. Practice in real situations, with real stakes and a chance to reflect afterward, is where a behavior becomes something other people can count on.
Put It Into Practice
Use this before a conversation that is already on your calendar this week. Choose one where you’d like to practice the behavior.
Choose one behavior and make it observable. “Be a better listener” can mean many things. “Let the person finish, then ask one question before I share my view” is something you can recognize while it’s happening.
Name the moment it gets hard. Finish this sentence: “It gets harder for me when…”
Write the expectation underneath. Finish this one: “If I do this, I expect…” Hold it loosely. It may be accurate, or it may be a story you’ve been carrying.
Pick the conversation and one action. Write the action next to the meeting title so it’s in front of you.
Reflect for three minutes afterward. When did it feel easy? When did you want to return to your usual response? What happened to the expectation you wrote down?
If it helps, tell one colleague what you’re practicing: “I’m working on asking a second question before I give my view. If I skip it, feel free to nudge me.” The request gives others a way to take part without making them responsible for your growth.
Which behavior would you choose, and which conversation will you try it in?
Source: BCG, Mind the Belief Gap. The practice above is Siamo’s own application, not a BCG finding or a tested intervention.