How to Listen Like a Leader
Listening like a leader enables you to make the world about others.
An outward mindset precedes leadership.
Get started:
Take out a pen and paper. Write your responses to the questions that follow.
Writing is thinking.
- Record the reason you want to improve your listening skills. Purpose energizes growth. What advantages for yourself and others do you see in becoming a better listener? Write until you record all your ideas. Wait. Write some more.
- Write about the best listeners from your past. What made them good listeners? Think beyond their actions to their attitude about themselves and you. Consider their motivations.
- Make a list of the best listeners on your team. Explain why they made the list. Identify three qualities, motivations, or behaviors they regularly exhibit.
- Jot down one thing you might learn from the best listeners on your current team.
Take action:
Invite your team to work on their listening skills with you. Shared projects strengthen respect, elevate enjoyment, enhance follow-through, and fuel progress.
Say, “I’m working to become a better listener. I’d like to invite you to join me.”
Schedule listening walk-abouts once a day. Walk around listening to learn and connect. During the process leave a bit of yourself with everyone you engage.
Debrief with your team. What are we learning?
Why listen:
#1. Listening saves time. Stop answering questions that aren’t being asked and solving problems that don’t exist.
#2. Talent goes to sleep when leaders give all the answers.
#3. Answer-givers end up needing to give more answers. Teams become dependent.
- Individuals learn to wait, rather than taking initiative..
- Leaders becomes overworked and overwhelmed.
#4. Listening strengthens connections.
#5. Listening is the path to learning.
Growth happens in community.
How might leaders take their listening to the next level?
What does it mean to listen like a leader? (Assuming there’s more to it than listening to solve or answer.)
Thanks Dan
This is going on my wall:
“Talent goes to sleep when leaders give all the answers.”
Thanks Ken!
That stood out to me as well.
Thanks Dan.
Dan – another excellent piece. I also really liked the quote above. When we listen with a focus on the speaker in a way that is open and non-judging, we can really begin to understand others and support them in their learning so their skills and perspectives can be nurtured to help them thrive. Thanks
Thanks Kathy. It’s useful to receive feedback about something that gets traction with my readers. I put “Listening saves time,” first. I thought it would get the most resonance. Thanks for sharing your feedback.
How can we learn the Non judgmental aspect of listening? Can You Help with some tips Dan?
The simplist approach I have used is keep asking “Why?” Questions. Why questions draw out the reasoning of the person’s logic.
Thank You Jim
So I changed the image because of the initial feedback.
Dan, What is your favorite book on growings in the skill of listening?
I’ll think about that, Todd, and get back to you. Thanks for asking.
Two things struck me immediately and both deal with your suggestion herein and prior posts about “walking around” amongst the workers; walking around to engage in conversation and walking around to listen. A balance of both leads to great leadership. Nice!
Thank you SGT. You put that together well!
Another great post. It is also time for me to say ta-ra to commenting on your blog, which I have enjoyed immensely, I raise my hat to you Mr Dan Rockwell! Although, in saying this I do hope to be able to visit your blog and comment occasionally, time permitting. Take care Dan Rockwell and followers!
Thanks Thinker. I’ll keep my eye peeled for your occasional comment.
#3 really resonated with me. With Answer-Givers, “Individuals learn to wait, rather than taking initiative.” and “Leaders becomes overworked and overwhelmed” In a job I loved for 17 years, I became overworked and overwhelmed. I was oftern told I needed to delegate more. “Individuals learn to wait, rather than taking initiative” really explains why. I regret it took me so long to realize that instead of helping them, I was holding them back.
I love the picture with the second reason to listen: “Talent goes to sleep when leaders give all the answers.” And #3 explains why. As usual Dan, insightful and practical advice for developing win-win cultures.
Thanks Jackie. It’s often hard to see that we are the cause of many of our own frustrations.
I’m glad you shared a bit of your story.
Thanks also for your feedback. One thing I really enjoy is reading what others think!
The other part of the story is that the position was in a technical support call center for industrial printers, software and material (labels, signs, barcodes, RFID…). Even after realzing I was holding back my newer colleagues growth, I thought the customers’ right to immediate, accurate help (especially in line-down situations) was more important. But since call centers are usually looked upon as cost centers, not revenue generators, they often don’t get adequate resources for training
Thanks Jackie. Time is a key factor. Overall, listening takes less them than not. However, there are some situations when listening less and solving or directing are appropriate.
Everything isn’t a development opportunity.
Great post! Listening is also about asking the correct open ended questions to explore the other opinions on a deeper level.
http://www.rootsofaleader.com
Thanks Steven. Yes…a great question ignites the mind and strengthens connection. They usually begin with ‘what’ or ‘how’, not Don’t you think. 🙂
Exactly right. Open ended questions is the key to great conversation and coaching.
How might leaders take their listening to the next level?
Dan–like you do with us. Start by asking question that you really want to explore and gain insights as to what people are thinking and feeling. .
Thanks Paul. Don’t ask a question if you aren’t open to an answer. If you already think you know the answer, say so. “I think I might know the answer, but I’m interested in what you have to say.”
Great post! This is a great skill to work on as a leader but also as a parent of a teenager and a college junior. Sometimes I find myself giving them all of the answers rather than letting them solve things on their own. A text from my 20 year old last night read “I am figuring it out. Let me deal with it. I know it needs to get done and figured out and I am working on it”. Guess its time to land the helicopter with her, and most likely my direct reports as well.
Thanks Barbara. LOVE the illustration. You might like to know that our children respect us more if we let them struggle and then they come to us for some suggestions or support. But if we rush in, they push us away. Easy to say. Hard to do.
I think I hear the rotor on your helicopter winding down. Strange feeling.
Stop giving answers, ask more questions. I have found this improves everyone’s listening skills.
Thanks Jim. At lease everyone has to listen to questions! 🙂 … Frankly, listening to questions seem to activate people’s thinking.
Dan and followers, here is a listening test for you to take. I have used this as a warm-up exercise with clients. Most people fail it.
Instructions
How well do you think you listen? Well, I am going to give you a test – yes, a three-minute timed test – to see how well you follow directions. Oh, the test won’t count too much, but I am interested in how well you do on it. When I tell you to, I want you to read everything before you do anything, and follow the directions on the test exactly. Please leave the test face down on the table until I tell you to turn it over and begin. Remember, it is a timed test.
Hand out the one page test.
Are you all ready?
Okay, turn the test over and begin.
TEST – Can you follow instructions?
1. Print your name in the upper left hand corner of this paper.
2. Sign your name in the upper right hand corner.
3. Above the title of this test, print 123-456-7890.
4. Immediately above this number, print your area code and telephone number.
5. Add those two numbers together and put a box around your answer.
6. Circle the word “corner” in sentence one.
7. Draw two boxes around your signature.
8. Put an “X” on each side of each box.
9. Put a circle around the entire second sentence.
10. Put a “0” in the lower left hand corner of this paper.
11. Draw a triangle around the “0” you just wrote.
12. Draw a circle around the word “corner” in sentence number 6.
13. Put the name of your instructor in the lower left hand corner of this paper, next to the “0” and triangle you have drawn there.
14. Circle all of the odd sentence numbers.
15. When you get this far, without raising your hand, call out loud so your instructor can hear, “I AM FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS.”
16. Count from one to ten in your normal speaking voice.
17. Loudly call out your last name when you get to this point in the test.
18. If you have followed all instructions carefully to this point, call out “I HAVE.”
19. Say out loud, “I AM ABOUT TO FINISH.”
20. Now that you have finished reading carefully, do ONLY what you were instructed to do in sentence one.
How did you do?
Love it!
I was reminded of a quote by Stephen R. Covey when reading through this post – ‘most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply’.
Thanks Libby. I think it’s true.
Great article! Powerful caption.
Thanks Elesha.
Good one Dan… listening feeds the leader… giving all the answers just feeds the ego!
Thanks John. Great connection between ego and listening. It takes humility to sincerely listen. Glad you mentioned it.
Great post! I find that I really have to work on my listening skills because of my presence (mental intensity and large stature). I always need to soften up my facial gestures and body language which includes a head tilt, slight smile, and raised eyebrows. I really like your quote “I’m working to become a better listener. I’d like to invite you to join me.”
Thanks wise… Brilliant. You’ve become aware of some unintended ways you intimidate others. I find that intensity often causes others to shut down or pull back. It feels like pressure or competativeness, even if we don’t mean it that way. Calmness of spirit doesn’t have to be weakness or lack of focus.
Dan, I was especially drawn to your thoughts on listening strengthening connections and as a path to learning. For myself this resonated and got me thinking about my own leadership skills as it pertains to intuition and emotional intelligence. Taking the time to listen not only helps to build those relationships but promotes learning as well. Its easy to get lost in the pace of the day and lose sight of the humanistic element of leadership that these folks are people with emotions and taking time to listen to them, allowing them to vent and knowing when the right time to let them express themselves to me is leadership.
Thanks Bobby. Pressure and distractions drag us away from things that really matter, like people, for example. 🙂
It’s incredibly easy to lose touch with what matters. Perhaps one of the more important things leaders do is remind everyone of what matters
I agree 100% Dan. Understanding but practicing emotional intelligence and as you said, realizing that these are people and going out of your way as a leader to not just listen but tune yourself into what’s happening in their life goes a long way.
Excellent Dan. “Listening is the path to learning.” Yes, but I find most people are not willing to listen to things they have not thought about.
I wrote to many professor and universities in 2010 but no one listened. Now I have been writing about another matter and agin no one wants to even openly discuss it.My post this morning explains:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/coincidence-grace-luqman-michel
Correction please: Change ‘thought about ‘ to ‘thought of by themselves’.
Thanks Dan, Listening saves time and helps us learn more. I really liked all the thoughts.