The Power of Being Heard (And Why It Matters in Crisis) (Part 3 of 3)
Over the past two weeks I've written about why change is so hard: we lie to ourselves about reality, and even when we finally accept the truth, emotion paralyses us and stops us acting.
If you're a business leader reading this and recognising yourself in those patterns - the self-deception, the emotional paralysis, the circular thinking - you might be wondering: so what now? If we're fundamentally dishonest with ourselves and dominated by emotion, how do we possibly move forward?
The answer isn't more analysis or better frameworks. It's something far simpler and far more powerful: being truly heard.
______________________________________
I discovered this through the Samaritans training I feel so fortunate to have had, and it changed everything I thought I understood about helping people in crisis.
When I started the training, I expected to learn techniques - advice to give, problems to solve, frameworks to apply. That's not what Samaritans does at all. The entire approach is built on one principle: create non-judgmental space for people to be heard. You don't give advice. You don't offer opinions. You don't share superior anecdotes or try to fix their problems. You listen. Deeply. And you reflect back what they're saying.
At first, this creates an overwhelming sense of anxiety. Someone shares something profound or traumatic, and you're expected to respond armed only with empathy, open questions, and an invisible space. That feels like very little tools to give someone a meaningful response, particularly when they're coming from a place of deep trauma and they're expecting you to say something of value.
You feel stripped bare of all the armour you'd normally wear into a conversation - the judgments, the opinions, the advice, the superior anecdotes, the ego that wants to be listened to.
It's deeply uncomfortable.
But when you strip all that away, when you truly listen and reflect someone's own words back to them without judgment, they can't argue with themselves.
We're desperate to be heard - not necessarily for others to understand us, but so we can hear ourselves speak. When someone creates space for that and reflects it back, it forces honest self-confrontation. You hear your own words, your own patterns, your own circular thinking laid bare.
That's when clarity emerges. That's when people can finally see themselves - their real fears, their actual situation, what's noise and what's truth.
This is what I discovered in those dozens of job transition coaching conversations I mentioned last week. I went in with frameworks and technical tools, thinking that was the value. But the real power was in holding space - creating an environment where people could vocalise the emotion consuming them and hear it reflected back. Once they could hear themselves, they could see themselves. And once they could see themselves honestly, they could move forward.
______________________________________
Mollie and I had dinner with lovely friends of ours over the weekend. The two of them have run their family business together for the last 15 years. We talked of extended time off, they said they'd love to have an adventure with their four daughters. But in all their time in the business, they've never taken more than a week off.
The reason didn't surprise me, and won't surprise you if you've run your own business through challenging times. Their biggest client requires him personally to manage their account on a daily basis. It was impossible to contemplate that the client would cope with him being away for longer than a week.
She handles finances and bookkeeping, and when I suggested she could dial in remotely, she looked genuinely terrified of being away and hands off.
I felt for them because I have been there. No way to possibly see a different relationship with the business, or a different way to work. When I sent him a message offering to talk it through, he assumed I was offering advice on how to get out entirely.
This is what happens when leaders have no outlet to be heard without judgment, when there's no space for them to vocalise what's actually happening and hear it reflected back.
They become consumed by the business - it covers all their thoughts all the time. They can't see the wood for the trees. Fifteen years without more than a week off stops being a problem that needs solving and becomes just a fact of life. The idea of remote bookkeeping seems impossible rather than a simple technical solution. The conclusion is that there is no way out. There is no alternative.
I know this pattern intimately because I lived it. When I was trying to leave my business and sell it, trying to extricate myself because it had become such a dominating experience for me and my family, it seemed impossible. The business covered all my thoughts all the time. I was fundamentally isolated in it, unable to see a way out, trapped in exactly the same circular thinking I now see in other leaders.
Without that space to be heard, the emotion continues to consume your bandwidth. You remain an inefficient, circular thinker, unable to see clearly or act decisively even when the path forward is obvious to everyone else.
______________________________________
This is what I see missing in most business turnarounds.
Leaders in crisis carry enormous weight: responsibility for employees whose livelihoods depend on them, ego wrapped up in the business, self-worth tied to success, status they're terrified of losing, historic baggage from past decisions and failures they can't let go of, shame about what's happened on their watch. And everyone around them has an agenda or an opinion or advice they're desperate to give, but no one is creating space for the leader to simply be heard.
To vocalise the fear and shame and paralysis. To hear their own words reflected back. To confront themselves honestly about what's actually happening rather than what they're telling themselves is happening.
Most turnaround specialists focus entirely on the financials - the restructuring, the cash flow models, the operational fixes. They assume that if you just show the leader the numbers and the plan, they'll execute.
But they won't. Not if the emotional reality hasn't been addressed.
______________________________________
I approach this work differently because I've had to learn all three sides of it the hard way.
I spent years in Swiss banking and trained for my CFA, so I can handle the complex financial restructuring - reading balance sheets, modelling cash flow, negotiating with creditors. That's the technical foundation.
But I also spent 12 years at Roger Lewis nearly losing everything multiple times. I couldn't pay myself for months to protect the business. I faced the suffocating weight of responsibility for people's livelihoods while barely being able to see a way forward myself. I've lived through the crisis, not just studied it or parachuted in to fix it. That's the credibility.
And through my Samaritans training and years of coaching people through transitions, I developed the capability to create non-judgmental space for leaders to be heard. To help them vocalise the weight they're carrying, hear their own words reflected back, and confront themselves honestly about what they've been avoiding. That's the missing piece.
Most specialists bring one of these, maybe two. The combination of all three is what allows me to manage both the financial reality and the human one.
Because you can have the best turnaround plan in the world, but if the leader can't execute it because they're paralysed by unprocessed emotion, trapped in circular thinking, fundamentally isolated with no outlet to be truly heard - the plan is worthless.
______________________________________
If you're facing an existential threat, or sensing warning signs that worry you, and you need someone who understands both the numbers and the weight you're carrying - let's talk.
Sometimes the most powerful thing is just being heard.
This is Part 3 of a 3-part series:
Part 1: We Think We're Rational. We're Not. - Why self-deception is the first barrier to change
Part 2: Even When We Know the Truth, Emotion Paralyses Us - The emotional bottleneck that stops us acting
Part 3 (this post): The Power of Being Heard - And why it matters in crisis