Ahh Quotes: The Power of Listening: Quotes for Leadership and Success

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

The Power of Listening: Quotes for Leadership and Success

True communication starts with listening. These quotes highlight the importance of listening, offering insights for leadership and relationship improvement. Listening is a process of self-growth beyond understanding and empathy.

⊙Listening for Success: The Core of Leadership and Growth

Listening is not just about hearing words, but about actively engaging with what is being said and understanding the underlying message. While many people focus on speaking, true communication begins with listening. These quotes highlight the importance of listening, offering valuable lessons on leadership and building better relationships. Listening is not only a tool for understanding others, but also a process of self-growth.

Of all the skills of leadership, listening is the most valuable — and one of the least understood. Most captains of industry listen only sometimes, and they remain ordinary leaders. But a few, the great ones, never stop listening. That's how they get word before anyone else of unseen problems and opportunities.

- Peter Nulty -

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." - Ernest Hemingway

"Listening is being able to be changed by the other person." - Alan Alda

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply." - Stephen R. Covey

"You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time." - M. Scott Peck

You have to be willing sometimes to listen to some remarkable bad opinions. Because if you say to someone, ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard; get on out of here!’ — then you'll never get anything out of that person again, and you might as well have a puppet on a string or a robot.

- John Bryan -

"There is as much wisdom in listening as there is in speaking – and that goes for all relationships, not just romantic ones." - Daniel Dae Kim

"People unconsciously know when you are not listening to them. Then they say ‘No’ to you." - James Altucher

"An actor’s a guy who, if you ain’t talking about him, ain’t listening." - Marlon Brando

"Those who are quick in talking are not always quick in listening. Sometimes even their brilliancy produces a sort of stupidity." - G.K. Chesterton

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.

So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.'

- Larry King -

"If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk." - Robert Baden-Powell

"Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right." - Jane Goodall

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk." - Doug Larson

"Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer." - Ed Cunningham

Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones

who do more listening than talking.

- Bernard Baruch -

"And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him to talk." - Dale Carnegie