Hello,
When Leaders Truly Understand, Everything Changes
Before leaders act, they must first understand. Sounds simple — yet it’s one of the hardest things to practice. Why? Because we often believe we already know, or we let unconscious bias cloud our judgment. And when leaders act without truly understanding, they risk making misguided decisions.
I’ll never forget a moment that had a profound impact on me.
During a weeklong workshop, a participant — I’ll call her Nancy — came to me on the second day. She looked troubled. “I want to apologize to you,” she said. “For hating you without even knowing you.”
Seeing my confusion, Nancy explained. She was Jewish, the granddaughter of Holocaust victims. Growing up, she had heard about the horrors of Nazi Germany. “When I heard your accent,” she said through tears, “I saw in you the people who killed my grandparents.”
My German accent had stirred her family’s trauma.
I was deeply moved. I told her, “You don’t need to apologize. I understand how you could feel that way.” My own family had suffered during the war, so I could empathize with her pain. I added, “I’m sorry about what happened to your family.” That moment opened the door to further conversations. Over the next few days, Nancy began listening with genuine interest and discovered that I condemned Nazi crimes and cared deeply about Holocaust families’ suffering.
Interest Is the Key to Understanding
What makes understanding possible isn’t only empathy — it is interest. Empathy connects us, but interest keeps us engaged. Interest is the emotion that pushes us to explore complexity, go deeper, and stay open long enough to truly understand a person or an issue.
For leaders, this is the real challenge: to extend interest not only to those who are easy to understand, but especially to those who we feel are hard to understand or relate to — a colleague, a client, or someone with very different cultural, political, or religious views.
The Call to Lead Differently
If you want to lead with real impact, don’t rush to action. Start with interest. Ask one more question. Listen one layer deeper. Be curious about what shapes another person’s perspective. This applies just as well whether you are trying to better understand a person or a complex issue.
Because when leaders first seek to understand, they don’t just make better decisions — they build trust, connection, and a foundation for lasting change.
👉 Watch this brief video clip (5th in a 10 part series): Interest – The Key to Understanding
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Interested in previous videos in the series? Go to: www.reinerlomb.com/recordings/
And please share this with colleagues or friends.
Thank you,
Reiner
