One of the most important traits of an effective leader is his or her ability to listen. While hearing is a natural ability listening is an acquired skill.
Listening involves more than just the capacity to understand what is said and how it is said. The act of listening happens on several levels, the most important of which is being able to listen for the emotional process behind the words and the give and take of dialogue. In other words, leaders know how to distinguish content from emotional process. Effective communicators have that quality of “emotional intelligence†that allows them to address emotional process through empathy and intuition.
But here’s an insight: the secret to effective communication is not so much the leader’s ability to use language eloquently, as it is the ability of those he or she leads to also listen effectively. No matter how good a communicator a leader is, if his or her followers do not know how to listen, there is little effective communication. I remember a marital counseling session years ago where I was trying to help a couple with their communication skills. The woman’s presenting problem was that her husband was not listening to her. I suspected it was at the least a case of the natural “selective hearing†that husbands often develop over time for the sake of domestic tranquility. At worst, I suspected that there was some issue that had moved the couple toward cutoff or distancing, resulting in the wife becoming a pursuer.
It was quite a shock to discover that, for once, the presenting problem was the actual problem. Try as I could, I could find no way for the husband to show evidence that he was able to “hear†what his wife was saying. We tried several exercises, finally resorting to having him repeat, word for word, what she had just said. The man just could not do even that! It was like playing a game of two-person-telegraph where the message gets garbled just traveling the short distance between one person to another. I brought in another counselor to help. After two sessions we concluded that the man had a genuine neurological problem that affected his cognition when it came to hearing-leaving him with even less of an ability to listen. (But I must admit that over the years, as I thought about that incident, I’ve wondered if perhaps the man was just smarter than those of us trying to get him to listen to what his wife was saying. Some people will pay any price for peace of mind!).
Like most areas in our lives, we are trained how to listen at an early age. Aside from physical hearing limitations or neurological issues, how your followers have been taught to listen will determine their capacity to follow and learn from you. Effective listening is a complex skill, and therefore, difficult to acquire. An effective listener has the following skills:
1. Can take responsibility for his or her half of the conversation.
2. Can interpret words, tone of voice, body language, and cultural cues.
3. Can interpret what is being said both in content and emotion.
4. Can respond appropriately (congruent) to what is being said.
5. Can determine the purpose of conversations: small talk, cathartic, informative, persuasive.
6. Has the discipline to not talk about self interests before listening to others.
7. Can discern when they are being challenged and will not take a reactive offended posture.
8. Can discern the language of sabotage in all its forms, from seduction, to flattery, to criticism.
9. Listens without searching for hidden motives (doesn’t engage in mind reading)
10. Uses “I” messages (can self-define values, opinions, and perspective).
A wise investment of time for the leader of any system is to spend a significant amount of time training the other leaders in your system in the art of listening. Train your leaders to discern the sound of emotional process behind the messages. The more effective their listening, the more effective will be your leadership. The best resource I’ve found on the topic of listening and communication is Wardhaugh’s, How Conversation Works
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.†-Robert McCloskey
