How active listening can make you a better leader
In today’s digital workplace, listening can be harder than ever. We are continuously inundated with waves of information battling for our attention. Just as you’re collecting your thoughts from one meeting, you’re heading straight into the next.
Listening is one of the most powerful tools you possess as a leader. It helps you build trust and foster loyalty. It lets others know that they are important to you and that you value what they have to say.
Unfortunately, many leaders don’t carry this awareness and never learned how to effectively listen. In fact, less than two percent of all professionals have had formal training to improve their listening skills.
As technology leaders, we need to embrace the practice of active listening. This practice centers around engaging with your employees to the point of being fully immersed in what they have to say. Our goal is to understand. When we make active listening part of our everyday routine, we build trust, loyalty, and strong relationships.
Let’s look at the elements that go into active listening and explore how it can make you a more effective leader.
Every IT leader I know is insanely busy – it goes with the territory. But that frantic pace comes at a cost: It’s difficult to be fully present and give another person your focus when your attention is frayed between multiple competing priorities.
When you let the world intrude on a conversation, you unconsciously tell the other person that they are less important than the things around them. Instead, with every interaction strive to make a connection and show people the respect they deserve. To do this, start by limiting distractions. That means closing your laptop, muting your phone, and parking work problems at the door so you can focus and engage with this person in this moment. Of the hundreds of things littering your calendar, is any one of them more important than leading your team?
This concept comes from Stephen R. Covey’s bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. At its essence, it means we should listen with purpose.
In our normal daily interactions, most of us are just waiting for our turn to talk – angling for an open space in the conversation where we can steer the discussion where we want it to go. But when we do this, we devalue what the other person is saying. We aren’t truly hearing them. How can you help someone with their problem if you don’t understand what their problem is?
It requires patience to listen with purpose. Break out of the cycle of formulating a response while the other person is still in mid-thought. Instead, take the time to listen to the undercurrent of what they are saying. People rarely share everything that’s on their minds, but if you are mindful, you can usually read between the lines. It’s not only their words that tell the story. What is their body language saying? What facial cues are you noticing? Seek to fully unpack what is going on so you can provide the empathy and support your employees need.
It’s not enough simply to silence the world.
