First Level Leadership

Turning Listening Skills into Some Account

Don’t forget the lost art of listening skills

Suppose a member of your team is unusually quiet and lackluster 

This depressed and depressing frame of mind might last until an eventful day dawns, when you have to submit a crucial report to your senior manager. Since you are dependent on this person, his frame of mind has bearing on his performance. This impacts your performance as well.

So what do you do? Offer a patient ear and a glued eye  Logically, as a responsible leader, you approach him and ask if you could help; and you may say something like, “I believe that something is playing on your mind. Would it help to speak about it? I have some time right now.”  Listening is a natural occupation of leaders

You lean forward and start listening intently and a few minutes of listening can do wonders for a person. As you listen to him, the feelings come out in the open, problem solving starts automatically and if you are lucky, you may even arrive at a solution. It is evident that you have displayed forethought.

Fortuitously, you have resolved the problem; 

your listening has forestalled the occurrence of another unproductive behavior that would indeed be unacceptable and embarrassing for you.

But is it prudent to only demonstrate listening  

when things are not right? Certainly not! 

It makes much more sense to make

conscious efforts to exhibit patient listening in your leadership role because effective listening is crucial to your success.

I know listening skills are not very “fashionable.” 

You would never see anyone praised for great listening. You will rarely find any role models who demonstrate effective listening skills. However, that is not a sensible reason to ignore the cultivation of your listening skills. 

Avoiding ineffective patterns of listening 

is the first step towards cultivation of this skill. One of the most ineffective patterns that occur in conversations is that a speaker speaks to a speaker instead of a listener.

Let’s evaluate how people listen 

People engage in listening in the following ways: 

Passive listening 

Selective listening 

Attentive listening  

Active listening 

Have you ever been in a situation 

when you felt quite frustrated because you expected more participation from the other person – That’s a definition of passive listening.

Have you ever been in a situation 

where the other person was listening with the aim of hearing what he wanted to hear? He was consistently inconsistent in his listening efforts. – This is selective listening for you.

Have you ever been in a situation, 

when the person was only interested in the facts without any concern for your emotions? Did you feel terrible because his listening efforts were falling short? He could not gather the full meaning of the message in terms of facts coupled with the emotions. – That is attentive listening.

The last one – Have you ever been in a situation 

when the listener captured your full message along with the facts and feelings? He even summarized and paraphrased to clarify his understanding of what you said. This is a pure form of Active listening. 

You need a high degree of concentration and focus on mental energy for active listening to work. 

Epilogue

When you understand the impact of listening skills, you will realize the benefits of effective listening and the cost of poor listening.  

If you have an opportunity, 

just reflect on what you have lost because of poor listening in the recent past. The key is to discern both the benefits and the cost so that you can maximize the benefits of your own listening skills.

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Listening Time!