Why Listening To Your People Is Overrated

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As a successful leader, I spend most of my day sharing ideas, giving commands, and making decisions. You know what I don’t do? Listen. I’m too busy to spend time listening to people who are below me. 

And if you want to be a great leader, you’ll stop listening, too. Listening is overrated and nothing that great leaders need to worry about. 

If there’s a great idea worth listening to, I would have thought of it myself. 

There are just too many people who want to talk to me. If I listened, I wouldn’t get anything else done. And my time is better spent doing anything else than listening. Wasting time listening just takes away from time you could be growing your business or making more money. 

People get all worked up when they don’t think you’re listening to them. But a leader’s job isn’t to listen to people babble on and get emotional. A leader’s job is to get results. 

You were probably taught to listen as a kid. But you’re an adult now! As a leader, you need to focus on doing, not just standing still and listening. 

People who have time to listen clearly don’t have as many responsibilities and aren’t as important as me. Listeners are suckers who get pulled into people’s mindless personal lives and ideas. They aren’t cut out for leadership roles. 

Plus, listening is outdated. Technology is everywhere today and is much more efficient than having to listen to someone. If it really matters, send me an email--don’t make me pretend to listen to you drone on and on.

If someone just won’t stop talking to you, focus on hearing. As long as people think you’re listening, that’s enough. Feel free to fake it with a little head nod so they think you’re engaged. But really, you’re thinking 10 steps ahead of them with your next idea. 

Think this is harsh? No way! Science is on my side. Humans aren’t wired to listen to each other, especially when the amount of words and sounds we produce exceeds our ability to process them. 

As a leader, you know best. You don’t have to waste time listening to people’s feedback on your great ideas. People are wrong a lot of the time, so listening to their dumb thoughts slows you down. Some of the world’s greatest leaders and thinkers like Albert Einstein and Walt Disney were told no or that they didn’t have good ideas. But they didn’t listen! And they went on to be incredibly successful.

What great ideas have you had that people have tried to tell you were garbage? Don’t listen! You should be the smartest person in the room, so don’t listen to what anyone else says. 

If you work at my company, I promise to hear your words, make eye contact, and cut you a check, but I’m not your friend, therapist, or spouse. Those people are much better listeners.

I don’t listen. And that’s why I’m so successful. 

-The Outdated Leader

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Over the last 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of speaking and working with some of the world's top leaders. Here are 15 of the best leadership lessons that I learned from the CEOs of organizations like Netflix, Honeywell, Volvo, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and others. I hope they inspire you and give you things you can try in your work and life. Get the PDF here.