Dec. 18, 2025

🌴353. The buy-in move most leaders skip

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Show Notes

I’ve just delivered my final webinar of the year and, honestly, I’m not gliding into the finish line. There’s still work on the table.

In today’s episode, I want to share something simple that worked beautifully in a live client session. A practical way to get buy-in without overcomplicating things.

The move is this

“Here’s what you said.”

That’s it.

This team had been involved earlier in the year, sharing input on their future direction and identity. The leadership team took that raw input away, did the hard thinking, and came back with something clear, sharp, and aspirational. And instead of opening with “Here’s what we’ve decided,” the leader opened with a slide that said, Here’s what you said.

That one move changed the energy in the room.

People could see themselves in the work. They could recognise their language, their intent, their concerns. It showed respect for the process and for their contribution. And importantly, it didn’t try to include everything. It highlighted patterns, not noise.

There’s a myth that if you ask for feedback, you have to use all of it. You don’t. What you do need to do is acknowledge it, synthesise it, and show how it informed the direction you’re taking. Even if you ultimately choose a different path, transparency earns trust.

This is also a timing lesson. If you gather input and then disappear, you do more damage than if you’d never asked at all. Feedback needs a visible return loop.

As we head into the end of the year, when energy is patchy and attention is stretched, this is one of those low-effort, high-impact moves that actually works.

I’m heading into a writing-heavy summer, with fewer client interruptions and, let’s be honest, a bit of sloth mode sprinkled in. We’ll see how disciplined I am.

Thanks for listening. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

Show notes for every episode at https://podcast.leannehughes.com

P.S. Ready to take things up a level? Here are some ways I can help: