Make People Feel Seen, Heard and Understood - Part 1: Common Mistakes

February 27, 2023
A person speaking at a podium with a crowd of people in the background.

Making people feel seen, heard, and understood is one of the most fundamental and important skills of a coach. In our work over the past decade, we’ve come to believe that it’s also one of the most important, yet underdeveloped, skills of a leader. This skill, though simple, is surprisingly lacking in our day-to-day human interactions. To develop it is radical. And, when leveraged in a leadership context, the skill can transform you into a source of inspiration for your people.


But what does it mean to make people feel seen, heard, and understood? Why are leaders getting in their own way? Leaders could stand to listen and ask more questions, but first they have to recognize the mistakes they make when they THINK they’re doing exactly that.


Focusing on your experience


This is what happens inside your head while you’re having a conversation with someone. They mention something, and your mind jumps to something you want to say. Perhaps you had a similar experience you want to share, or you thought of an idea worth offering. The point is now you’re focused on what’s in your head rather than on the person in front of you. You’ve stopped seeing or hearing the other person.


Asking information-seeking questions, not exploratory ones


Questions are often designed to be information-seeking rather than designed for exploration. We spend our lives in school training ourselves to ask the questions that will lead us to a concrete answer. But making people feel seen, heard, and understood isn’t about knowing when the task is due, or determining whether they’re where you think they should be in the process. It’s about recognizing they are naturally resourceful and probably have the answers inside themselves,  and bearing witness to their process.


Asking yes/no or leading questions


Often leaders will phrase a question, but its answer is simply a yes/no response. How many times have you been in a meeting where the leader asks, “Are there any questions?” This question warrants nothing more than a yes/no answer. People take it as the invitation it's intended to be, however, because of the way the question is worded it requires several additional mental leaps. This can slow down the conversation enough that people haven't quite formulated their question before the leader moves on. Other times, yes/no questions are really just suggestions veiled as a question. “Did you try reaching out to Jim?” “Are you going to give it another week?” “Were you annoyed?” These kinds of questions can be at best, leading, and at worst, toxic. They take your conversation partner down a train of thought that isn’t their own—it’s yours. They didn’t reach out to Jim… now they have to tell you about their failure to do so. Eek! They hadn’t been annoyed, but now that you planted the idea in their head, they subconsciously take it on.


Solution-finding


The most insidious mistake of all is one that feels so helpful and useful—how could it possibly be a mistake? This is the habit of solution-finding. Believe it or not, most of the time when people come to us with a problem, they’re not actually looking for a spoon-fed solution. Instead, they want to be recognized in their struggle and challenged to think in new ways. They want to know that you have a fundamental trust in their capacity to figure things out of themselves… they just need help with where to look.


Now, as a leader, sometimes each one of these actions are relevant and necessary to do your job. The key is acknowledging that these behaviors are NOT the ones that contribute to your people feeling seen, heard, and understood. To be an effective, engaging, and inspiring leader, you just have to be intentional about creating the time and space with your people to truly listen and ask powerful, exploratory questions. This is additive to the other hats that you will wear in your role, but crucial to making your people feel seen, heard, and understood.


Stay tuned for Part 2 for classic tips from the world of coaching that you can leverage in your role as a leader to do just that.


What do you see as common mistakes that can get in the way of your leadership?

Summary of Takeaways

Making people feel seen, heard, and understood is a fundamental leadership skill that is often surprisingly lacking. To become an inspiring leader, you must first recognize the common mistakes that get in the way of true connection:


  1. Focusing on Your Own Experience: When someone else is talking, your mind often jumps to your own similar stories or ideas. This shift in focus means you've stopped truly "seeing" the other person and are now just waiting for your turn to speak.
  2. Asking "Information-Seeking" Instead of "Exploratory" Questions: Leaders often ask questions to gather facts (dates, status updates) rather than to foster exploration. True connection comes from bearing witness to the other person's process and trusting that they have the answers within themselves.
  3. Using Leading or Yes/No Questions: Questions like "Did you try reaching out to Jim?" are actually suggestions veiled as questions. They force the other person down your train of thought rather than their own, which can feel toxic or accusatory.
  4. The "Solution-Finding" Habit: This is the most insidious mistake. While it feels helpful, most people aren't looking for a spoon-fed solution. They want to be recognized in their struggle and challenged to think in new ways.
  5. Recognizing the Difference: While giving instructions is sometimes necessary for a manager, it is not the behavior that makes an employee feel seen or heard. You must be intentional about creating separate space for deep, exploratory listening.



The Bottom Line: To move from a "manager" to an "inspiring leader," you must pivot from providing answers to asking powerful questions. By letting go of the need to be the solver, you empower your people to be the source of their own solutions.

< Older Post

 Newer Post >

Share this article

Recent Posts

Executive Presence is a Skill: Be professional and yourself at the same time

By Stephanie Judd • October 19, 2026
The first time Stephanie watched Damien work, he had a Palm Pilot in each hand, an earbud in each ear, and apparently half his brain listening to two calls simultaneously. (Yes, that Palm Pilot reference ages Stephanie. She’s aware.) Damien seemed to be everywhere at once, always with something to give. He was also her skip-level boss. His kids were teenagers, and Stephanie was closer in age to them than she was to him. In her first job out of college, he both impressed and terrified her.  So when Stephanie was sent to Ithaca, NY on a recruiting trip to Cornell with Damien, her nerves took over. She saw this two-day trip as an amazing opportunity to build a relationship with him, and she wanted to make sure to impress him with her easy competence and magnanimity. Yes, always the overachiever, Stephanie had a clear vision of how the trip was supposed to go.

Why Authenticity Matters and What It Has to Do With Influence

By Kara Davidson • October 5, 2026
It's never been more important to be yourself. Kara's brother learned this while hiring for his company. He was eight interviews into a search for a new position at this company, and every one of them wasn’t who they said they were on their resume. Some invented their experience. Others leaned so hard on AI that he couldn't find the actual person behind the answers. He was aggravated trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t. All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t trust his own read, so he handed the search to a recruiter. That's what happens when people can't tell what's real. They get suspicious of everyone. And when one thing about someone seems off, we doubt the whole person: the experience, the credentials, the firm handshake.
Team meeting around a table with papers and a blank flip chart, led by a presenter in a yellow shirt

Not all questions are created alike: Great leaders know the difference

By Stephanie Judd • September 21, 2026
Stephanie had a mentor who went straight to ‘here’s what I would do’ the moment Stepanie asked for advice. Although this mentor was extremely well-meaning, the advice she gave was irrelevant and outside of Stephanie’s reality. “Take your clients to the ballet,” she said. But Stephanie lived nowhere near a ballet company, and her clients weren’t local to her. If this mentor had just paused to ask Stephanie a few questions, her insights would have been a lot better formulated.  Most people leading a discussion default to questions that inform them rather than explore possibilities. The difference is subtle, but the impact is huge.
Person in a purple shirt beside blue question marks in a yellow thought bubble

Curiosity Is a Leadership Superpower: Great Leaders Ask Questions

By Stephanie Judd • September 8, 2026
Leaders have to have all the answers, right?  Kara had a coaching client who was facing a big org change and needed to keep her people motivated. She was hyper focused on what she should say and how she’d provide her people with answers. She knew this was a critical moment for building and maintaining trust and engagement on the team. But when Kara asked, “What would you be looking for from your leader in a moment like this?” the client said, “For them to listen to me.” Then why do we try to have all the answers? Why don’t we listen?
Show More