Active Listening Skills for Effective Leaders

 

Every leadership training workshop mentions listening. "Effective leaders are good listeners. You should listen more." And so forth. Most of us think that we are pretty good listeners, at least when we really need to be. In fact, many business organizational leaders try to do a good job of listening but in many cases sabotage their own efforts with bad habits that they have learned over a lifetime.

Here's a short true/false pop quiz:

1. When an upset team member comes to me with a problem, humor is a good way to ease the tension.
2. Most team members who come to me with problems just need a little reassurance.
3. Team members come to me with problems only when they need a little advice.
4. When a team member comes to me with a problem, the only way to find out what he or she needs is to ask questions.
5. When a shares problems with me, I try to analyze what's wrong and give her/him some suggestions.

If you answered "true" to any of these, you may be sabotaging your listening. There are barriers to listening that few recognize. Because we know our own motivations and intentions, it is sometimes hard to accept that our best efforts are not working. Leaders are often surprised to learn that reassuring, asking questions, giving advice and the like are often not helpful responses when someone else - co-worker, team member, manager, supplier - has a problem. In fact, they are often major barriers - they can prevent the other person from taking responsibility for really trying to understand what is bothering them and doing the problem solving themselves.

Let's say your team member sighs, looks dejected and says to you: "I'll never make it! These new quotas at my job are ridiculous!" This is a clear signal that she/he is upset, distressed, has a problem and needs to be listened to and understood. It would be easy to say, "You're a pro. I wouldn't worry about it." That is what's called reassurance. Or by suggesting, "I think it would be a good idea to talk to your supervisor about this" (advising) or by asking questions like, "How many do you have to complete? When are they due? What steps have you taken so far?"

Responses such as these, well intentioned as they may be, potentially do more harm than good. These responses do not communicate understanding or engage the person in the kind of problem solving that is more likely to lead to a resolution. Instead, they may cause him/her to feel frustrated, misunderstood, patronized, and unaccepted. In effect, these responses communicate: "It's not okay for you to feel this way," or "I'm not comfortable hearing that you're upset so here's how to get over it," or "A more competent team member wouldn't have gotten themselves into this situation in the first place." While these are not the messages you may intend, they can often be interpreted in these ways.

Our nonverbal communication carries considerable weight and we do not control the conclusions others draw about our messages.

What is called active listening, on the other hand, is more likely to communicate that you understand and accept the other person's feelings. It is also more apt to keep the responsibility for problem solving with the other person. (This process was first called "reflection of feelings" by the eminent psychologist, Dr. Carl Rogers who espoused it as the best way for psychotherapists to respond to their clients. In the early 60's, Rogers' student, Dr. Thomas Gordon, brought this skill into the mainstream by teaching parents how to active Listen to their children in his Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) program and subsequently to business leaders in Leader Effectiveness Training (LET).