Do You Listen More Than You Talk?

Talking more than you listen de-motivates. Listening more than you talk motivates.

Early in my leadership career, I thought that it was the leader’s role to do most of the talking when in conversation with my team, or as individuals. I thought it was the leader’s role to stamp their authority on the team, and that the team should listen to the leader.

This was a big mistake on my part because we now know that the leader’s role is to do the exact opposite.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know back then, but I was continually learning, and I learned quite fast that it wasn’t up to me to do most of the talking (20% of the talking). It was up to me to do most of the listening (80% of the listening).

I thought of myself as the “expert” because I was in the leadership position. But I was by no means the “expert”. I had a team full of experts, so I should have listened to my experts a lot more, and leveraged their expertise.

When I started reading leadership books and taking my leadership development more seriously, my listening skills started to improve. I was also improving at letting my team members do 80% of the talking in our conversations.

Especially when we were talking about their frustrations, or personal issues. My leadership styles were improving every day, as I worked on myself every day.

Asking questions of my team, rather than giving them the answers or suggestions was something I developed too.

Especially open questions that would enable my team member to draw out more information from inside themselves, and eventually work out the solutions themselves with my guidance.

By doing this I was respecting my people, and they would respect me because I listened to them.

When asking your team members questions and helping them draw out their own answers and conclusions, it takes more time than just telling them the answers. But, it is worth taking more time because you are going beyond communicating when you listen 80% of the time.

You are connecting with your team. When connecting you are increasing your influence, and building up stronger trust with them.

What you will find is, when you make stronger connections with your team, they will become more successful. They will achieve more, so again it is definitely worth taking more time with them by asking them open questions (what?, who?, where?, why?, how?).

When the team start to become more successful and achieving more than they thought, you will find it even easier to get them to buy-in to you, your ideas, and any changes you want to implement.

You and the team will grow together, and you will grow closer. You will no longer need to set the direction for the team, they will happily follow you on their own down the right direction. The team will choose to stand beside you and unite as one team.

When that happens, you will know that your influence is increasing with the team every day.

All the best,

Tom Lawrence (Highly Effective Leader)