Did you know that we spend roughly 80 to 90% of our day communicating? As a leader, communication is one of the most important components of your role. Without communication skills you can’t guide and motivate others, foster relationships, create vision or drive results. Despite its importance, communication can be a difficult skill to master, even at the leadership level. That’s why as a leader it’s crucial that you continually develop your communication skills so that you can be as effective and productive as possible.
Perhaps the most important communication skill a leader needs to continually develop is the art of truly listening. Listening helps us build and maintain relationships and can even help us be more productive. Here’s the thing, listening and hearing are NOT the same thing. Most people are born with the ability to hear; but few of us are truly good listeners. Hearing occurs automatically and requires no conscious effort. If the physiological elements in your ears and your brain work, then the impulses will be received. What you do with the impulses after you receive them determines whether you are actually listening. Listening effectively is a deliberate process and requires that we expend energy.
The greater the amount of energy we put into listening, the more effective we will be at understanding and helping others meet their needs, a requirement if you want to be a really great leader. There are several different levels of listening, but if we want to understand people’s needs we have to listen at the highest level, giving full attention to what is being said, and taking time to understand where the individual is coming from, what are they feeling, and what they need. This type of listening can be hard to master, especially with all the distractions that are so prevalent in our modern world.
So how can you become a better listener? Today I am sharing six strategies to take your listening skills to the next level.
- Be self-aware. Active listening requires a high level of self-awareness. In order to really listen you have to be able to shut off your internal dialogue so you can truly focus on what the other person is saying. Being self-aware also means you can recognize when you shouldn’t have a conversation. If you aren’t in the right headspace to really listen, being able to recognize that fact and setting up another time for that conversation takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness.
- Pay attention! When you are communicating with someone, make sure you are giving them your undivided attention. This means that you need to limit your distractions as much as possible, turn off your phone, step away from your computer screen or find a quiet place to have the conversation. The more you can limit your distractions, the more you can pay attention and the better you will be able to listen.
- Demonstrate that you are listening. When you show the other person you are listening it also helps you focus on them. Use your own body language and gestures to convey your attention, nod occasionally and note your posture and make sure it is open and inviting. You can also demonstrate you are listening by paraphrasing and summarizing what the other party is saying. This simple technique can help you make sense of a speaker’s points.
- Provide feedback. When we engage in conversation, sometimes our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said, so you may need to reflect what is being said and ask questions or check for understanding. You can do this by saying things like, “I think what you are saying is…” or “what do you mean?”
- Defer your judgment. When you are listening to someone speak, it’s important to put aside your personal feelings and judgements about the topic you are discussing and the person you are having the discussion with. If you can’t put aside your judgments, you are more likely to interrupt the speaker. Interrupting can quickly derail a conversation and cause frustration for both you and the other party. It will also limit your understanding of the message.
- Listen to understand, not to respond. When you listen to understand you are truly trying to understand what the other person is saying. When you listen to respond, your brain is constantly working to come up with your next argument and distract you from hearing what the other person is saying. When engaged in conversation allow the other party to finish their thoughts before jumping in and refrain from interrupting them with counter arguments.
In today’s world of endless distraction it can be difficult to take the time to really listen to those around us. This can be especially hard if you are a leader who is focused on achieving results and getting things done. If you can slow down and take the time to really listen and connect with those around you, it will go a long way in helping you build relationships and improving your leadership.
