Politicians must listen closely to their constituents in order to fix American politics, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said in a speech at the Institute of Politics yesterday.

Speaking to a packed John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, Steele said that politicians must work to understand the opinions of Americans from all sides of the political spectrum.

“You cannot lose sight of the fact that at this time the American people are talking very loudly,” Steele said. “I’ll do what my mama said when I was a young boy and shut up and listen.”

According to Steele, many of the problems with contemporary politics stem from the failure of politicians to understand the needs of their constituents.

“There’s a Chinese saying that says, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ It’s a pretty good saying until you realize it’s actually a curse,” Steele said. “Living in interesting times means that you can’t control it.”

In order to deal with the current shifting political landscape, Steele said that aspiring politicians must be honest with the public and be comfortable following others when necessary.

“The mission at hand is to understand first and foremost the land you’re on and how that ground is shifting and changing by the minute,” Steele said.

Harvard Republican Club President Mark A. Isaacson ’11 agreed with Steele’s conception of listening as key to successful political leadership.

“I think that it’s very true, and I hope that as chairman of the party he can make sure that the Republican candidates heading into 2010 are doing exactly that and also continue to do that once they get elected,” Isaacson said.

Kennedy School student Peter J. Witzler disagreed with the distinction Steele drew between building consensus and bipartisanship, which Steele called a “political fiction” and a “zero-sum game.”

“I don’t think politics has to be either a zero-sum game or a place where you have to give something up,” Witzler said. “There’s not a finite piece of pie that has to be split up.”

Other audience members were unconvinced by Steele’s proposed solutions for American politics.

“Three people asked in a different way about problems in American politics, and to each of them he just said, ‘That’s just politics,’” said Kennedy School student Dominic Maxwell. “I left thinking this man is part of the problem, not the solution.”

Steele’s visit particularly resonated for many Republican members of the audience because of Republican Senator-elect Scott P. Brown’s recent victory in Massachusetts.

“I definitely think bringing in the Republican Party chairman is bringing Harvard out of its comfort zone, which is a good thing,” said D. Scott Darnell, the vice-chair of the Kennedy School Republican Caucus, one of the sponsors of the event.

—Staff writer Stephanie B. Garlock can be reached at sgarlock@college.harvard.edu.