Effective Listening for Leaders

Posted 05 March 2013 in Leadership

With organizations and individuals so fervently focused on the bottom line, it's easy to ignore "softer" goals, such as listening well. I don't hear "All that touchy-feely stuff is a waste of my time" anymore, but I do observe it being overlooked or just forgotten.

A focus on listening can lead to more effective teamwork, higher productivity, fewer conflicts and errors, enhanced innovation and problem-solving, improved recruiting and retention, superior customer relations and more. Loads! As authors on leadership development have noted through the years, listening is not just a nice thing to do, it's essential!

"Make the human element as important as the financial or the technical element," wrote Stephen Covey in his seminal book,The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. "You save tremendous amounts of time, energy and money when you tap into the human resources of a business at every level. When you listen, you learn."

As long ago as 1966, Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive and numerous other books, emphasized the importance of listening to both self and others as an essential step in bringing to light everyone's role as contributors to the organization's overall success.

Likewise, studies in Emotional Intelligence (EI) over the past couple of decades have found that leaders actually "infect" the workplace (for better or for worse) with their attitudes and energy. To understand and influence these flows of emotions and motivational states, leaders need to be able to practice empathic listening skills.

In their book Primal Leadership, authors Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee, describe how varying leadership styles rely on listening skills for their effectiveness.

Visionary leaders listen to values held by individuals within the group, enabling them to explain their own goals for the organization in a way that wins support.

Coaching leaders listen one-on-one to employees, establish rapport and trust, and help employees help themselves in matters of performance and information gathering.

Affiliative leaders listen for employees' emotional needs and strive to honor and accommodate those needs in the workplace.

Democratic leaders elicit ideas and participation by listening to everyone's opinions and information.

In Seven Habits, Covey cites numerous examples of successful business deals and resolved workplace issues in pointing out the importance -- and power -- of empathic listening versus mechanical, or perfunctory, listening. He also acknowledges that it takes time and practice to become adept at listening empathically. Here are some tips for sharpening your listening skills.

Develop your curiosity. This helps with Covey's suggestion: Seek first to understand. Genuine curiosity is felt by others and helps to open up their speech and your listening.

Pay attention to your listening. Replay conversations you've had and assess whether you listened well.

Seek feedback. Ask coworkers, employees, bosses, clients/customers and suppliers to assess your listening skills.

Work with a coach. Coaches can help you discover ways to listen better not only to those you work with, but also to yourself. A key skill for all leaders and one we've not often discussed or developed.

Listening better will reward you with an entirely new level of communication and problem-solving skills, for empathic listening requires the ability to see multiple points of view in any given situation.