The Quiet Power of Listening Before Leading

Early Days - When I Listened to Hear

Early in my career, I learned one of the most important leadership lessons of my life — not in a classroom or a training, but in the middle of what felt like a political storm.

I had just become the Republic of Palau’s Director of the Bureau of Public Service System under the Ministry of Finance. I was young, and I was female (the complete opposite of my colleagues). I was moving back home after being away, stepping into a role that carried real weight — ensuring the Public Service Act was actually implemented. That meant making hard calls. And in my experience, those kinds of calls tend to split a room right down the middle.

Add a new administration into the mix, and what you get is noise. Political noise. The kind that ends up in newspapers. The kind that — when you're the new person in the room — can feel very personal, very fast.

I'll be honest: I felt attacked. And looking back, I can say with some humor that I was probably the perfect target — young, new, and still figuring out how to hold my ground without losing my footing.

What saved me was a mentor. My direct supervisor.

My position sat under the Ministry of Finance, and the then-Minister of Finance, Elbuchel Sadang, is one of the most formidable leaders I have ever had the privilege of working alongside. (More on him in an upcoming post — he deserves his own blog entirely.)

What Minister Sadang helped me understand was a distinction that changed everything for me:

Listen to understand — not just to hear.

What was being said in those political moments wasn't always what was actually being asked. The noise wasn't always a personal attack, even when it felt like one. Underneath the headlines and the pressure were real concerns, real interests, and real people trying to navigate their own pressures. Once I started listening for that — for the meaning underneath the message — I could respond with clarity instead of defensiveness.

It wasn't easy. And I won't pretend the pressure wasn't real — it was a lot for a young professional to carry. But that shift in how I listened changed how I led.

That experience has stayed with me across every role I've held since — in government, higher education, nonprofits, and now in the work we do at WeRise Consulting Group. When we partner with organizations navigating change, we always start by listening first. Not to validate a plan we've already built, but to genuinely understand the landscape — the concerns, the history, the voices that don't always make it into the room.

In communities across Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, this matters deeply. Trust is not assumed. It is built — slowly, through consistency, through respect, and through the willingness to hear what people are actually saying before deciding what needs to happen.

Lasting change doesn't get delivered to communities. It gets built with them.

And that almost always starts with a leader willing to slow down, set aside the noise, and truly listen.

If you're in the middle of a change effort and want a thought partner who will listen first — we'd love to connect. Visit us at weriseconsultinggroup.com