So what are Listening Circles like in your org?

The first time I heard of a listening circle was at work — in Toronto, in a large org. I hadn't encountered the concept before, so I read up a little to understand what was actually meant by it. And honestly, the concept is quite interesting. The sharing, the feeling heard, the being supported. It seemed simple enough: the circle itself reinforces that there is no head of the table, no obvious hierarchy, no power seat. Everyone is equal. You speak, others listen without interrupting, and something about being genuinely heard — not evaluated, not advised, just heard — turns out to matter to people.

In the right context, it works. People processing shared trauma, navigating similar fears, making sense of experiences the outside world doesn't quite have language for — peer circles with real equivalence have solid evidence behind them. The format exists for a reason.

But that's in a therapy-like or support group setting. Among people who share the same ground. Where the circle is actually what it claims to be.
So what happens when you drop that circle into an org chart?

What happens when you cross a circle and a hierarchy? Sounds like the setup to a bad joke. And sure, right along the same vein as "flat orgs" — yeah, I know they exist. Right next to the unicorns everyone keeps wanting to hire. 🙄 Tell me more about flat orgs with the reporting lines, performance reviews, promotion process, compensation bands. Feels flat right?

But I digress. Back to the circle.

So who exactly is in it?

Your peers, maybe. Your manager, possibly. Worse — your VP. Gasp, maybe even the SVP. Whoever they are, if they are going to provide feedback in your 360, or are actively involved in decisions about your mentorship, your promotion, your continued employment — they're in the circle.
People who have spent considerable effort nudging you — explicitly or implicitly — on how to present yourself, how to frame concerns, how to be seen as leadership material.

"Bring your authentic self," they say. And then spend the rest of the year coaching you not to.

The criteria for advancement didn't change. Just the language around it. The right kind of vulnerable — open enough to seem self-aware, composed enough not to make anyone uncomfortable.

And while your soul shrivels quietly inside, your LinkedIn stays current.
So tell me again why anyone would say something real in that circle.

Here's a story for you:

Once upon a time, in a previous life and a previous org, HR noticed that in a specific part of this vast streamlined well-oiled machine, women were somehow not making it past a certain level. The numbers looked fine — balanced, even healthy — right up until Senior Manager. And then the drop was Niagara Falls sized. Barely a handful of senior leaders who happened to be women. HR flagged a concern, a team was deployed to investigate, create safe spaces for conversation, gather feedback, maybe even propose a few constructive steps forward.
The proposed solution: a listening circle. Bring together the women who made it through and the women poised just below the cliff. Seat them with the VPs and SVPs. Create a space. Ask them to share.

Simple right? Maybe. But let's unpack what that circle actually looked like, felt like.

You have the directors. Women who had navigated years inside this specific organization, with these specific people, to arrive at a level where almost no one who looked like them had arrived before. They were not only women — they were a diverse set of skills, backgrounds, and experiences. Intersectionality at its best. Exceptional in every way.

And they were about to give feedback — honest, structural, career-risk-carrying feedback — to the people who hired them, promoted them, or had the organizational power to redefine their roles tomorrow. Possibly permanently.
And then you had the Senior Managers. Another set of accomplished, diverse, exceptional women poised at the level just before the cliff. Who reported into those directors. Who needed VP approval to advance. Who had spent their careers carefully managing how they were perceived by the very people now being asked to hear them.

Most of their face time with the VP and SVP level had happened in two contexts: formal presentations where competence was being demonstrated and their pronunciation practiced enough not to be corrected mid-thought. And company social events where a different kind of performance was expected. Oh yes, [insert sport] is fascinating. Riveting, really.


The only version of themselves these women had ever shown the senior leadership in that room was the polished version. The prepared version. The version that had learned, through years of pattern recognition, exactly how much of themselves was safe to bring into a professional space.

Now they were being asked to share openly. Give feedback. Speak freely.

The well-meaning people who designed the listening circle genuinely wanted to hear what was happening. That part is true and worth saying. The intention was real. What they didn't design for was the answer they got before the first session ever started.

Your options, when something like this lands in your calendar, are not complicated. You can comply — make no waves, show up, perform just enough openness to satisfy the format without saying anything that will follow you. Or you can speak up — and here comes trouble.

The listening circle felt less safe than a Slido question at an all-hands. Less safe than a number on an engagement survey. Both of those have distance. Both of those have at least the performance of anonymity. The circle had none of it. Just chairs, and the people who decide things, and you.

The ‘no’s came in quietly. Not a group refusal. Not a formal objection or an organized response. In private conversations, one at a time, the picture became clear: No. I will not be participating.

Full body revulsion was how one person described it — in a quiet 1:1, in private, which is the only place the truth was ever going to live anyway. What is one hour going to resolve, really — other than confirming exactly what these women already knew about what was and wasn't safe in this organization?

The listening circle never happened.

And the reason it didn't is the most important tell that things were not ok.

"I will not lie, nor will I stand there and be humiliated by my truth."