Who are the people in an organization most familiar with what could be done to improve a process, the division of responsibilities, or a project?
Generally, they are the people doing the work.
When a leader is more often on transmit than receive, such people are likely to be reluctant to step up and make suggestions for constructive change.
I see this with clients who believe their role is to have more answers than questions. In situations where they are with their employees, they tend to be describing, recounting, theorizing, explaining, or even lecturing. Their people sit politely, nod, and tend not to come forward with their own expert ideas or solutions.
Interestingly, the leader will tell me me it's like pulling teeth to get people to tell her what's not working, and what could be done about it. They do not realize their own role in the clam-up problem.
I ask my clients to observe a situation where I sit with their employees and ask a long series of questions about how to get from Point A to Point B, what's holding them back, how they would solve the problem, and what specific recommendations for change they would make. I ask them to tell me what else I should be asking but have not yet asked. I ask them to teach me and explain it to me in simple terms, and with patience. Usually my transmit-client is squirming in silence.
Yet when they see their previously "shy" people step up when given good questions and plenty of ear-time (that is, good listening, letting silence do the heavy lifting, as Susan Scott says), they are surprised, and then they get it.
Monitoring the time you are on transmit versus receive, and moving more toward the latter, is a powerful and simple leadership tool.
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