Graybeard Leadership and Executive Coaching
Helping leaders grow since 2014
New Supervisor Survival Guide - Listen to Understand
Speaking well is probably one of the reasons you were promoted. But being a great speaker does not, by itself, make someone a good leader. The best leaders are also great listeners. Listening is how leaders learn about their team members, their work, and the challenges they face. Listening well is essential for productive conversations. It’s fundamental to building good relationships and it’s hard to lead effectively without good relationships. There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth. We don’t learn when we speak.
Any Google search would reveal many definitions of effective listening and numerous techniques for improving these skills. All can be boiled down to the simplest level: do we listen to understand or do we listen to reply.
The vast majority of the time, the vast majority of us formulate what we want to say while our conversation partner speaks. This is listening to respond. The nature of business tempts us to convey information quickly, advocate for our priorities, and persuade others how right we are or how wrong they are. Typically, we impatiently wait for others to stop talking before agreeing, disagreeing, or explaining. While this may feel efficient, we end up missing so much. By paying attention to our own thoughts instead of hearing our conversation partner’s words, we often fail to understand fully what the other person is saying, and more importantly, why they are saying it. Jason Headley’s video, “It’s Not About the Nail,” (available on YouTube) is a great example of listening to respond when listening to understand is what his conversation partner needs to feel heard.
There’s a better way. Listening to understand requires that we silence the soundtrack in our mind while the other person talks and recognize that we don’t need to spring-load a response to launch as soon as the other person pauses for breath or stops talking. There’s nothing wrong with waiting for a few seconds before we speak—such a silence gives us time to process and think of something to say—and what’s the big deal if there are a few seconds of quiet? When we talk less and listen more, we learn more information from the other person and more about the emotion and the reasoning behind what they say.
Good listening builds relationships. Being fully present and giving another person our full attention is a great gift and meets a deep, universal human need to be heard and feel valued. It strengthens our work relationships and builds trust. The stronger our relationships and the more team members trust us, the more they will let us lead them.
A colleague of mine in the 1990s is the most striking example of great listening to understand that I’ve witnessed. Phoebe was a deep listener—giving her full attention, asking inviting questions, maintaining eye contact and a relaxed posture, and letting her conversational partner finish their thoughts—who made people feel truly heard and valued. I jokingly told colleagues she must be an alien, who had an infra-red beam that shone from her forehead and bathed people in a warm glow! At one point, she and I competed for a big promotion. I had more direct job experience and subject matter expertise, but my boss chose Phoebe for the promotion. In addition to being smart, hard-working, and persuasive, her deep listening to understand created powerful executive presence, built strong relationships, and exerted a gravitational pull on colleagues. “Listening to understand” was likely a key element in her rise to be CEO of a corporation with annual revenue of $38 billion. Guess my boss made a pretty good selection.
Were Phoebe’s deep listening skill and executive presence natural gifts or did she learn? I never asked her, and I suspect her talents were a combination of nature and training. In his book Supercommunicators, Charles Duhig describes how the Central Intelligence Agency trains its’ operations officers to listen deeply and ask open-ended questions to create the connection and trust necessary to recruit foreign citizens to spy on their own country on behalf of the United States. His book is well worth reading and as you might have guessed, Phoebe had been a CIA operations officer.
Early in my career as a manager, I spoke too much and didn’t listen enough. For a typical staff meeting, I would arrive with a long list of information I wanted to transmit. By the time I finished talking, we were usually running out of time and few team members had a chance to speak. I was doing all the work and probably boring my team members. And, most importantly, I did not learn information my team members could have contributed. After reflection, I did what lots of effective leaders do: I copied a technique of a leader I respected. The Admiral for whom I worked would wait to talk until after everyone else had a chance to speak, allowing him to consider others’ information and opinions before making concluding remarks or decisions. I implemented this technique, which I called the “Reverse Order Meeting.” I still arrived with a long list of items that I wanted to ensure were covered, but instead of doing most of the talking, I let everyone else update the team about their work. All I had to do was comment or add missing information as needed. Invariably, by the time we’d gone around the room, 90 percent of the topics on my list had been addressed. I talked less, learned more, and all I had to do was comment on a few items raised by team members or say, “Thank you.” Most importantly, my team members felt empowered and valuable.
There are all sorts of ways to practice and/or hold yourself accountable for listening to understand. The key is to collect information as easily as possible and in whatever way will be most useful for you. A few ideas that have worked for my coaching clients include:
· Reflect briefly after each conversation and note if you were listening to respond or listening to understand. You can collect data about your listening style and skills on a simple Post-it note or record it in a larger document after a meeting. Try to discern patterns in what helps or hinders your listening or even note with whom you succeed or struggle when listening to understand. A few days’ worth of data may be very revealing.
· Observe and note how people respond when you listen to understand.
· Ask a team member or colleague to track how much you speak compared to others in meetings.
Listening to understand is a challenge. Don’t be discouraged if you find yourself listening to understand and then sliding back to listening to respond. Rather, be encouraged that your self-observation skills are working and you are noticing how you are listening. This is a key step toward great listening as a leader.
To learn more about effective listening, I recommend the book Language and the Pursuit of Happiness: A New Foundation for Designing Your Life, Your Relationships & Your Results by Chalmers Brothers. At first glance, it may not sound like a book about leadership or business, but dive in. It is a fantastic resource for improving your conversations, and that will get results.
New Supervisor Survival Guide - Table of Contents
Shift to Developing Great Individual Contributors
The Dozen Key Skills
Get Off Autopilot
The Dozen Key Skills
Skill 1: Listen To Understand
Skill 2: Ask Questions that Encourage Thoughtful Discussion
Skill 3: Provide Feedback that Encourages Thoughtful Action
Skill 4: Delegate Challenging Work
Skill 5: Establish Clear Accountability Standards
Skill 6: Overcome Fear of Tough Conversations
Skill 7: Encourage Innovation
Skill 8: Inspire Commitment
Skill 9: Articulate Your Authentic Leadership Style
Skill 10: Foster a Healthy Work Environment
Skill 11: Lead Former Peers
Skill 12: Imagine the Future
Begin Your Lifelong Leadership Journey
I love to help leaders grow
Technical skills only get you so far. "Soft" Skills Determine Who Rises.
I'm an International Coaching Federation Master Certified Coach and former CFO who'll be your partner in refining your "soft" skills so you can overcome the day-to-day frustrations of managing so you can develop your people, build high performing teams and succeed as an executive by:
- Enhancing your self-awareness
- Increasing your emotional intelligence
- Strengthening your listening and communication skills
- Honing your unique leadership style
- Refining and communicating your strategic vision Inspiring employees
- Delegating effectively
- Delivering effective feedback
- Developing employees
- Building trust among superiors, peers and employees
- Making conflict less stressful and more constructive
- Creating a healthy office environment and engaged workforce
- Enhancing your executive presence
- Asking more effective questions
