Listening a lot is definitely what you should do. Doing nothing else for all of 3 months is rarely the solution though. When you really listen, you should ident

Listening a lot is definitely what you should do. Doing nothing else for all of 3 months is rarely the solution though. When you really listen, you should identify some things that you can immediately help with. Share similar stories in your past and let the talker get a breakthrough and suggest a possible solution based on their knowledge - it won'tbe the exact same one but you can add value and perspective of fresh eyes. Other times the talker has intimate knowledge of the problem and possible solutions and all they've been waiting was for someone empowered to just let them try it. As a leader your job is to enable those people. Then as time goes by you'll get your own knowledge of the problem space and can start taking some initiatives yourself too. But there's no need to literally do nothing for so long. People often misunderstand "empower people " with "I'm a dunce and can't help anything for months on end" as if magically on month 3 you're now enlightened. Perhaps the interviewer was checking if you understood the nuances of these situations.