Simone Weil, the French philosopher and mystic, believed that attention — real attention — is fundamentally an act of self-erasure. In her 1942 essay 'Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies,' she argued that the highest form of intelligence is not analysis or synthesis but the capacity to empty yourself enough to actually receive what another person is carrying. Most high-achievers do the opposite: they listen while already composing their response, which means they're talking to their own interior monologue, not to the person in front of them. Weil called this counterfeit attention 'a kind of muscular effort' — effortful-looking but hollow. What she was describing, though she didn't use this language, maps precisely onto what family therapists call 'co-regulation': the nervous system of a child or a team member literally calibrates itself against the calm, receptive presence of the person in authority. Humble leadership, in this reading, isn't a soft skill or a personality trait — it's a neurological gift you give by getting out of the way. Today, in one conversation that matters, try arriving without your agenda already formed.

In your last three significant conversations with people who report to you or depend on you — how much of what they said actually changed what you thought?

Drawing from French phenomenology and mysticism — Simone Weil (Attente de Dieu / Waiting for God, 1951; 'Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God,' 1942)