With organizations and individuals so fervently focused on the bottom line, it’s easy to
ignore “softer” goals, such as listening well. All that touchy-feeling stuff is a waste of my
time, you might say or think. On the contrary, read on.
Benefits of Listening
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. 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.
Empathic Listening Skill
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.
Listening Leader Types
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.
Importance and Power of Emphatic Listening
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.
Tips To Sharpen 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 well not only to
those you work with, but also to yourself.
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.
Author’s content used under license, © Claire Communication