When we talked to artist and scribe Reilly Dow of Pinkfish, we realized there was a lot we could learn about leadership from a "professional listener” like her. During our conversation at Spring's Leap of Leadership workshop in November 2025, scribing became a powerful metaphor for collective reflection and meaning-making.
Graphic scribing—visually capturing and representing conversations—is a dynamic type of facilitation. The visual feedback Reilly provides can be a calming surprise that harvests and offers people's stories back to them, painting a picture that allows new ideas and meaning to emerge.
Reilly found her way to scribing by accident but quickly fell in love with it. “It's a massive privilege to be invited into the room in this capacity. We're capable of more than we know when we get together and listen more intentionally," she says.
Having someone scribe at the front of a group—capturing conversations on the fly and embracing imperfection in service of the group—allows people to show up more fully, she adds. It activates them in creative ways.
Especially in today's era of upheaval in social and climate justice work, we must be attentive to what's happening and respond in ways that meet the moment.
"When people show up with a more expansive way of listening, it shapes a room and opens up possibilities,” says Archana Deshpande, Spring Co-CEO and Leap of Leadership host. “This is the energetic experience of co-regulation, which is part of the embodiment of listening. In our leadership, when we bring even a little more openness, we're inviting other people to do the same. Their own nervous systems can harmonize with ours, which is why presence is such a powerful thing.”
Sometimes, however, our inner critic shows up, making it difficult to listen to ourselves and others. The inner critic can filter out our most audacious ideas and limit what we believe is possible—individually or collectively.
At this moment in our world's living history, we must hope unapologetically. Taking our cues from scribes can support us to embody a sense of possibility.
A good place to start is realizing that you don't have to vanquish your inner scribe for good before you start getting creative and bold. In fact, you don't have to vanquish it at all. Inner critics help protect us from embarrassment and feeling unsafe. They have a role.
But when you don’t want your critic to be the loudest voice in your head, you can give it some appreciation, then politely invite it to wait outside the room for a while, says Reilly (citing the work of Dr. Richard Schwartz).
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📝Exercise—Freefall writing: Put some music on and start with 5 minutes of free writing or drawing. It can be on any topic or prompt (you can even start with “To me, listening is…”). The goal is to not plan, censor or edit yourself. You don’t even have to read it after. Just give yourself permission to do it. |
You can channel scribe wisdom in your groups, too. Reilly uses the four types of listening below, which are helpful no matter what role you're playing in a room. They each serve a purpose, and can help you better understand the place you tend to listen from.
Drawing by Kelvy Bird. CC License - Otto Scharmer - the Presencing Institute
You are listening from what you already know and believe, from habit or from inside your own point of view. You are not necessarily open to new information and fresh ideas but rather filter what you hear through your own existing biases.
You are noticing categories, agreement and disagreement with what you know or believe. You can integrate or filter this information into your worldview. This might be new data that informs the work you already do.
Your heart is opening up to new and different perspectives. You are engaged in dialogue and sensitive to meaning, emotion and tone. This could be a compassionate conversation with someone going through a challenging time.
You are listening for collective creativity, letting the tone and information lead you to the unknown—the emergent. You can weave in and out of different perspectives and are not attached to any one perspective someone brought into the room. This might be how a coach listens to help you identify choices.
Like the conductor of an orchestra, when you can listen on different levels, you can also support a group to listen to one another more dynamically and effectively—with inspiring results!
The skill of discernment is such an important, yet nuanced, skill for leaders. So much tension comes from how (and whose) ideas, knowledge and practices receive attention and use.
These four types of discernment (Bird, 2018) can help you identify what to do with the information you've listened to. This can bring a more intentional, leaderful quality to how you interact in your relationships and collaborations.
Think about the last conversation you had. What type of discernment was at play?
With these techniques for listening and discernment, you can make facilitation moves to turn up (or down) the volume on the ideas coming up in the room.
“Listening is to let things in. And the world is such that, right now, a lot of those things are really painful. I think grief needs to have a place,” says Reilly.
Since these are foundational skills, you can apply them to many situations, including for processing collective grief. Techniques for listening and discernment can bring you both spaciousness and supportive boundaries. “It can be a doorway,” says Reilly.
What will intentional, leaderful listening make possible for you?