Active listening is more than just hearing what someone says. It involves paying attention, showing interest, and responding appropriately. As a leader, active listening can help you build trust, rapport, and understanding with your team members, clients, and stakeholders. In this article, you will learn how active listening impacts your leadership style and how to improve your skills.
Active listening can enhance your leadership style in several ways. First, it can improve your communication skills by reducing misunderstandings, clarifying expectations, and providing feedback. Second, it can foster a positive work environment by showing respect, empathy, and appreciation. Third, it can increase your influence and credibility by demonstrating your competence, confidence, and openness. Fourth, it can boost your problem-solving and decision-making abilities by gathering relevant information, identifying needs, and generating solutions.
Effective listening (not necessarily the active listening that is taught) with full body and mind presence, non-judgmental and non-evaluative and a willingness to understand their perspective without the need to do anything often has the most impact, also shown by science: trust, building relationships, productivity, motivation, commitment, developing prestige power, etc. Yet, we need to learn how to listen in this way and it takes practice. We all think we are better than we are. But this is only true with some people, in certain ways and every so often. Stretch yourself for deeper, expanded listening and enjoy the ride!
Active listening enhances leadership by fostering trust and understanding. As a leader, it cultivates empathy, enabling you to connect with team members on a deeper level. By attentively absorbing their perspectives, concerns, and ideas, you demonstrate respect and validate their contributions. This approach encourages open communication and collaboration, fostering a positive work environment. Additionally, active listening enables you to make well-informed decisions, drawing from a comprehensive understanding of diverse viewpoints. Ultimately, incorporating active listening into your leadership style not only strengthens team dynamics but also promotes innovation and problem-solving through inclusive and informed decision-making.
One of the human's natural abilities is the ability to listen to everything that happens around us. We develop and evolve in hearing and listening. In particular, we identify different types of our listening skills to listen more effectively in different situations. Critical point is why we want or need to listen? Because it is important to understand something so we perceive information effectively. Sometimes, we are overwhelmed and do not want to listen to anything despite its importance. Therefore, in the professional world, motivation, focus, positive thinking, atmosphere, etc are factors that can improve listening.
Active listening and patience go hand in hand. we have all had bosses that blow up because you are bringing an issue to them. When I took over my first platoon of police officers I decided that I would practice active listening in order to be a better supervisor. as a result I found that quite often a boss that explodes never truly understands the issue being brought to them and will likely blame the messenger. By being an active listener, I have often found that the messenger may also be aware of a solution that will never be communicated if you react badly to the message.
Despite its benefits, active listening can be challenging to practice consistently due to various barriers. Distractions such as external noise, interruptions, or multitasking can cause you to lose focus. Your biases, judgments, and reactions may also filter what you hear and prevent you from fully understanding the message or the speaker's perspective. Additionally, you may be tempted to interrupt the speaker to express your opinion or give advice. You may even become defensive if you feel threatened, criticized, or challenged.
To successfully engage in conversation, it is important to adopt a mindful and respectful attitude. To do this, you should prepare beforehand by clearing your mind and setting an intention. During the conversation, focus on the speaker by maintaining eye contact and using facial expressions and gestures to show interest. Listen closely to what they are saying, how they are saying it, and what they are implying. After they finish speaking, reflect on what was said by paraphrasing and summarizing the main points. When it is your turn to respond, do so in a clear, respectful, and constructive way. Even if you disagree with the speaker's views or feelings, acknowledge them.
Ways to overcome some barriers in conversations are to focus on who is speaking to you, make eye contact, and listen to what they are saying, and if you do not understand ask for clarification. Always let the person speaking finish their sentence before asking for clarification or interrupting. Also, watch body language as well. Sometimes their words do not match their body language so ask if clarification is needed. Before responding listen to understand.
Enhancing your active listening skills is possible with practice and feedback. To do this, look for situations where you can practice, such as in meetings, presentations, or coaching sessions. Ask open-ended questions that start with who, what, where, when, why, or how to encourage the speaker to elaborate. Use pauses and silences in the conversation to give them time to think and express themselves. Be empathetic and try to understand the speaker's emotions, motivations, and goals. Don't make assumptions or judgments. Finally, ask for feedback from others on how well you listen and communicate. Be open to suggestions and criticism so that you can learn from your mistakes.
To illustrate the impact of active listening on your leadership style, consider how it can be applied in various scenarios. For instance, when giving feedback, active listening helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team members, acknowledge their efforts and achievements, and provide specific and actionable suggestions for improvement. It also helps you identify the root causes of conflicts and the interests of the parties involved, empathize with their feelings and concerns, and facilitate a collaborative dialogue. When negotiating deals, active listening establishes rapport and trust with your clients or partners, understands their needs and expectations, and proposes solutions that benefit both sides. Finally, when leading change, active listening communicates the vision and benefits of the change, addresses the fears and doubts of your team members, and involves them in the planning and implementation process.
Here’s a good road map to keep on track. If you find yourself formulating your response while they are still communicating (not just words but everything) then you aren’t active listening. Understand that what they are saying is more important that what you think they are saying. Hear them, work on understanding them, then respond based off of those 2 things. Get After It.