The Superpower of Listening
Most business conversations look like a medieval tournament of knights — each side armored up, charging at the other, trying to stay in the saddle. Bernhard Kerres argues that real listening means dismounting from that horse: trading armor and sword for vulnerability, and discovering that the lighter rider almost always wins.
Published 2025-07-14 by Bernhard Kerres
When I started coaching, I loved it. A client would pose a question, and I would not only give a simple answer but lecture on the topic for most of the session. Luckily, I learned in my coaching training that coaching is very different. It is all about the power of listening. Since I started teaching coaching and coaching leadership teams, I have wondered why listening is so often difficult.
In a conversation with a client, I got a new insight into the difficulty of listening. Imagine a tournament of knights in medieval times. The knights are well guarded in their armor, sitting on their horses, faces hidden behind their helmets. They each hold a heavy sword. Off they run against each other. Their only goal is to push the opponent from the saddle and to keep their own seat.
This picture comes back to me often when I follow business conversations, political debates, and other discussions. The only goal of the participants seems to be to stay in their saddles and push the others off. It is all about defending one's position rather than learning, developing, and growing together.
If we stay with this analogy, listening would be like getting on a horse without armor and without a sword. Do you know what would most probably happen? The unarmored rider would stay in the saddle — because they are lighter, and can maneuver much more quickly. The other knight, in full and heavy armor, might fall off because of sudden and fast movements to follow their opponent.
Armoring up in arguments, preparing rhetorical swords, hiding behind the visor — none of this leads to sustainable outcomes. It only enables us to either knock off opponents who will continue to work against us, or to fall in the dirt ourselves. It is time for different conversations.
Listening means being vulnerable. We are unarmored, not hiding behind a visor, with no weapons in our hands. We are there to listen and to understand. Whenever we feel the need to argue, we are most probably trying to hide our own vulnerability behind the armor of an argument. We hide our insecurities, our not-knowing, our missing self-confidence.
Let us focus on listening, on asking open questions, and on exploring new perspectives, innovative solutions, and creative ways forward.
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If listening is a muscle you are trying to build — for yourself, for a leadership team, or for a coaching practice you are developing — that is some of what I work on with clients and with the coaches I train. Reach me at bernhardkerres.com (https://book.bernhardkerres.com/meetings/).
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About the author
Bernhard Kerres trained as an opera singer before joining Booz Allen Hamilton as a strategy consultant, then moved into CFO and CEO roles at two listed European technology companies, and served from 2007 to 2013 as CEO and Artistic Director (Intendant) of the Wiener Konzerthaus. Today he works as a leadership coach, executive advisor, and keynote speaker. He is a PCC-certified ICF coach, holds an MBA from London Business School, and was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art. He is the founder of RolePlays.ai, an AI platform for practicing high-stakes leadership conversations.