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In his early years in banking, before he rose to become CEO of the largest bank in the U.S., Jamie Dimon followed a starkly simple career rule: don’t talk unless you have something worthwhile to say. 

The JPMorgan Chase CEO was once a 28-year-old Harvard MBA graduate working under the American Express president at the time, Sanford “Sandy” Weill. Dimon was selective about when he spoke, preferring to stay silent if he couldn’t add anything substantial to the conversation.��

“My first goal was to learn something and not say anything until I could add some value,” Dimon said in a 1984 Fortune profile that recently . 

At that point in Dimon’s career, he had just been promoted to vice president. He had moved up from being Weill’s assistant to the executive ranks in two years, highlighting just how effective his career advice was.��

Dimon played a pivotal role in assessing the performance of Investors Diversified Services before Amexco in January 1984. He also helped negotiate the acquisition of financial consulting company Ayco. As vice president of American Express, Dimon was concerned with the heavy losses incurred by the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, a property-casualty insurance provider.

Two years later, he would become CFO of the Commercial Credit Company at 30 years old. Now, Dimon has served as CEO of JPMorgan for two decades — and his message remains the same. He advised the next generation of leaders to close their social media apps and listen more to get ahead. 

“You only learn by reading and talking to other people,” Dimon at a talk at Georgetown University in 2024. “There’s no other way yet. People waste a tremendous amount of time… turn off TikTok, Facebook.” 

Other CEOs follow the same rule

Other CEOs have adopted their own standards around listening and speaking. In a , former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi called listening “the most important part of persuasion.” She wrote that she has been “better for it, as a CEO and a person” when she chose to listen. 

“There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth,” Nooyi wrote in the post. “We should do more listening than talking. We should lead as CEOs. But we should also learn to follow, if needed.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook is often cited as an example of active listening in the C-suite. In one account of a leadership meeting, he spent nearly all of his time listening, spoke very little and redirected questions to his team to surface their expertise. 

“He could very easily have dominated the entire conversation — every time he spoke, the room fell to eager silence,” Brad Rencher, CEO of BambooHR and a participant at the meeting, wrote for 91����. “Yet he said maybe 20 words in an hour and a half.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also ties listening and empathy directly to career advancement. In in 2019, Nadella said that “having empathy for your team is perhaps the best way to make progress in your career,” because when you understand people, they do their best work and you advance with them. 

“Basically, being a leader is a privilege you have,” Nadella said. “Your job really is about being able to help people realize their best potential.”

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