Leadership that listens: The quiet power of thinking environments

Session Speaker: Linda Aspey, Aspey Associates
Theme: Leadership, Management & Teams
Date: Winter Trimester, February 2025

“If the quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first, then what affects the quality of our thinking?”

That was the question Linda Aspey put at the centre of her session and it didn’t stay rhetorical for long.

Most leadership development focuses on speaking, influencing, directing. Linda took us the other way, into silence, space and deep attention. Into the Thinking Environment. Drawing on the work of Nancy Kline, she explored how the conditions we create around others directly shape their ability to think clearly, speak honestly and act wisely.

Ten components define the Thinking Environment - from listening without interruption, to equal participation, to encouragement over competition. These aren’t soft skills, they’re hard choices. Especially for leaders used to having the answers or speaking first.

The core idea is simple but demanding: people think better when they feel heard, not hurried. And they think better again when they know the room is interested in what comes next, not waiting for a turn to reply.

From presence to power

This wasn’t about being passive. Linda reframed leadership presence as power with, not power over. She introduced us to four types of power:

• Power Over - domination, control
• Power With - collaboration, partnership
• Power To - agency, capacity to act
• Power Within - self-belief, clarity of purpose

And then she asked: which ones show up most in your business? And which ones might be missing?

The discussion opened up as we considered the sources of power at play, from expertise and information, to charisma and position. Often these go unspoken. But they shape who speaks up, who gets heard, and what gets acted on. In essence, while power is about authority and control, influence is about persuasion and impact. A leader who effectively combines both power and influence can be highly effective.

In a Thinking Environment, leadership is invitation, not imposition. That means:

• Designing meetings where everyone has a turn
• Asking incisive questions to surface hidden assumptions
• Allowing space for silence, because the pause is thinking, not the gap between it

Thinking as a shared act

Linda reminded us that great thinking rarely happens in isolation. It happens in pairs, in groups, in moments where the presence of others helps sharpen our own ideas. It’s not about consensus, it’s about clarity.

That’s a shift for many SMEs. The drive for pace, productivity, and action can leave no room for reflection. But in today’s complexity, speed without sense is a false economy.

The session ended not with a call to action, but a call to attention. What if the best thing we could offer our teams wasn’t another plan, but a better space to think?

So, if leadership is about creating a space for others to think clearly, then power and influence become tools for enabling, not directing. Linda reminded us that most business leaders already have both, the question is how they use them.

• What would change if your influence wasn’t used to steer the answer, but to open up better questions?
• Where in your business are people thinking aloud, but not being heard?
• How might your meetings change if silence wasn’t feared, but valued?
• Which sources of power are helping, and which might be quietly shutting people down?