Aflac’s Dan Amos has run the same company since 1990, growing it from $2.7 billion to $17.2 billion in revenue. He is the longest-serving CEO in the Fortune 250. Harvard Business Review profiled him in May 2026, and one phrase has stayed with me since. (HBR Executive Agenda, 20 May 2026)
He calls the senior leader’s job consultant-in-chief. Delegate the decisions. Hold the team accountable. And listen for the silence in the room.
Here is what that looks like from the coaching chair, because the same discipline travels almost unchanged into senior leadership.
A client came to me wanting help with her time management. She was overloaded, working late, often into the weekend. The presenting problem was time, and it was real.
In her first sessions she never mentioned delegating. She rarely used the word “we”. When the conversation went near her direct reports, she moved on quickly. Three different ways of saying the same thing: the silence around her team was the loudest thing in the room.
Underneath the time-management request sat a quiet belief: “If I don’t do it myself, it won’t be good enough.” From that point, we worked on the belief.
I have learned to bring those silences into the room gently. A simple question, asked once, with space afterwards: “You are very clear on what you don’t want. What does that tell us about what you actually do want?” That session, she answered.
My own listening was trained by selling. Thirty years sitting across from buyers who would tell you what they meant if you waited a beat longer than was comfortable. It was trained further by operating in three languages I did not grow up speaking; listening hard becomes a habit when you cannot afford to miss a phrase, or an intonation. The same discipline travels into the coaching chair, and into the boardroom.
The Nordic translation
Amos’s consultant-in-chief frame translates well into the Nordic context, with one adjustment. The Nordic model is flatter, less hierarchical. Delegation and accountability still very much exist. Less effective leaders sometimes need help building the self-awareness to delegate cleanly, regardless of nationality. And accountability, in any culture, eventually stops at the most senior desk. In a serious crisis, I would be disappointed to see the CEO walk away unscathed. Yet it happens.
For the senior leaders I coach, listening is the work that most reliably produces a shift in how their team operates. It is also the capability most often left under-developed at the most senior tables.
If you are sitting on a question you are not sure how to bring into the room with your own team, a short conversation is often the cheapest way to test it. Half an hour, no charge.
