ABCs for Managers Who Lead – L is for Listen

Photo credit: MSH Staff — Photo credit: Warren Zelman

Listening is probably the most critical communication skill. Listening is not simply hearing. Listening is actually very difficult as it requires that we are fully present to the listener in us and suspend our brain’s chatter for a moment. Listening is about respect and giving the other our full attention.

How easy it seems to listen well, yet how difficult it is to give someone our full attention. When we listen intently, like we do when we are in the company of someone great, someone who inspires us, or someone who we paid to listen to, listening is easy. We are eminently motivated. That is when we ‘hang on someone’s lips,’ as the saying goes, or ‘drink someone’s words.’

But usually our listening is more routine, less intentional, and less conscious. We listen to our spouse complain about something ‘with one ear,’ or ‘halfheartedly,’ in other words, we listen incompletely rather than fully.

We listen for a break in the other’s speech, so we can say our thing. It is tempting to finish the other’s sentence when we think we already know what he or she is going to say. We may be right or we may not be right in which case we are missing what the other says.

When we listen because we feel we have to or because we are a captive audience, we listen not only half-heartedly but also half-mindedly since our minds are busy with other things. The fact is that listening does not easily combine with our brains doing other things. If you are doing something else (mindfully) while listening, your listening is diminished.

Listening well

The first act of improving listening skills is awareness, mindfulness, being present. The second act is catching oneself and pressing the reset button: I am fully present to this other person’s words.

Become aware of your listening habits. Are you providing subtle or not so subtle cues that you are listening (nonverbal or verbal)? Is your mind wandering off? Are you trying to signal the other person to stop talking because you want the floor? Are you already preparing your response to the other (which means you cannot possibly listen with care)? Are you dying to say that you already know what the other is saying out of a need to show how smart and knowledgeable you are?

A good test of how well you listened is your ability to summarize or paraphrase what the other said. It will give you instant feedback!