Here is an insight that often eludes us. Human beings can analyze or empathize, but they can’t do both at the same time.

This fact is why highly analytical people are typically poor listeners. We can’t both listen to understand the feelings involved and make judgments about what is being said at the same time. The most brilliant among us fall prey to this dilemma more often than others.

Smart, well-educated and mentally rigorous people are highly analytical. They bring their logical and inquisitive way of being to almost every conversation. This is both a good and a bad thing.

As a result of their brain power, they analyze what is being said and quickly break it down into bite-sized arguments. By instantly examining where they agree and disagree with the perspectives and opinions offered, they can respond with their own views on what matters. They cut right to the core issues and know exactly how to counter them with their own view. This is what makes them so smart to begin with.

The precision with which they listen, however, actually prevents them from understanding the feelings, identities, and emotions involved. They can’t empathize with, or listen to, the human dimensions of what is going on because their focus is elsewhere.

With an attention solely on what is being said, they skip over the sentiments imbued in every word and sentence. While accurately processing the arguments, they miss the trees for the forest.

Listening without judgment is incredibly difficult for highly analytical thinkers. Smart people have trained themselves to understand the issues and arguments while ignoring the feelings and opinions which underlie them. This makes their listening skills suspect to those they lead.

Building trustworthy relationships and buy-in to decisions requires a deeper, more active listening than most highly intelligent leaders realize. In fact, by focusing exclusively on analysis, they often miss the essential ingredients necessary to understand the root of a problem. Emotions, identity issues, status, and pride usually play an oversized role in whatever created the problem to begin with.

To be the best they can be, highly analytical leaders must learn to turn off their reasoning powers on occasion and adopt an active listening style. They need to do so without the judgment that clouds truly hearing what others have to say.

Instead of waiting for their turn to offer a view, the best leaders listen deeply to others without forming an opinion or thinking about their own counterarguments. Listening for analysis and empathy are very different ways to understand people and problems.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know we can never do both at exactly the same time. Sometimes, we can be too smart for our own good.

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