I Thought I Knew How to Listen—Then I Learned Radical Listening
How many aspects of leadership are made worse by listening? Not many. Radical listening is the heart of leadership.
I’ve been learning to listen all my life. If you think listening is easy, you aren’t doing it.
7 Benefits of Radical Listening
- Great questions. You can’t ask powerful questions until you listen deeply.
- Improved trust. People who feel heard are more likely to feel confident about you.
- Increased influence. Feeling listened to opens the heart.
- Clearer insight. Listening bursts the bubble of perceived knowledge.
- Confident openness. Team members don’t speak up until they know you listen.
- Strengthened relationships. Attentive presence invites connection.
- Effective decision-making. Better input = better choices.
“When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.” Brenda Ueland
Radical Listening includes “Listening For”
“When we ask great listeners how they listen, the most common responses focus on what they are listening for. ‘Listening for’ is the idea that you can keep an ear out for something specific.” Radical Listening
How to “Listen For”
#1. Choose your listening focus.
- Listen to feelings. Notice tone, pace, and body language.
- Listen for motivation. What excites or concerns them?
- Listen to what’s not said. Pay attention to silence, hesitation, or avoidance.
#2. Mentally name it.
While listening, pause occasionally and mentally name what you’re hearing. You might notice:
- Uncertainty.
- Confidence.
- Gaps between actions and words.
#3. Use reflective tools.
Ask questions to confirm or deepen what you’re listening for.
- “I noticed your tone change. What’s behind that?”
- “You lit up when you mentioned collaboration—tell me more.”
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” Henry David Thoreau
What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to listening?
What’s helped you become a better listener?
This post is inspired by the new book, Radical Listening by Christian van Nieuwerburgh and Robert Biswas-Diener. I found it enlightening, practical, and challenging.
This is exactly why I’m studying clinical therapy classes this is what they teach and similar to motivational interviewing you can align it with change management and organizational roles. Thank you for posting and continuing to inspire and validate the work of leaders everywhere.
Thanks, Sara. My understanding of motivational interviewing is that it is designed to energize people to change their own behavior. It’s a powerful tool. Thanks for tying it to radical listening.
What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to listening? Removing all the distractions from my head, so I can give the speaker my undivided attention.
What’s helped you become a better listener? When my 16-year old daughter said, “I don’t want you to solve my problem, I just want you to listen.”
You bring up two biggies. Undivided attention is a wonderful gift. It takes work. “Not solving” is the number one challenge of people I’ve trained to be coaches! Thank you for sharing your experience.
Dan Rockwell Your short pieces are extremely informative and outstanding reads. Thanks for sharing and for keeping new insights to surface. Paul
I appreciate your encouragement, Paul. Thanks for reading Leadership Freak. Cheers.
Listening is underrated and under appreciated! Thanks for this post – it’s always a good refresher to be reminded how important this super power is. We can get too caught up in our daily struggles, drama, and details to really hear what our co-workers are telling us.
So true. Daily pressures cause us to forget the behaviors that serve long-term goals. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Cato.
“Feeling listened to opens the heart.” This was a powerful blog post – I could have picked out several of those points you made. Thank you for sharing this insight. I know my heart indeed does open when I feel listened to…even if the other person does not agree.
Your transparency inspires me. Just think of the value of an open heart. Thanks, Travis.
Excellent insight: “Clearer insight. Listening bursts the bubble of perceived knowledge.”
The challenge is learning to challenge our perceptions. I can be confidently wrong! Thanks Jackie.
I had a colleague I worked with for several years. It was evident that she, like me, suffered from adult ADHD. However, when I needed someone to listen to me, she would come out from behind her desk and sit next to me, facing me. This small gesture became huge for me, and it is something I have adopted in my own conversations with employees and teammates.
Wow! Just wonderful. Your story demonstrates the power of removing physical barriers and the effect of modeling the way. Thanks Matt.
What’s helped? Intentionally calling out (hopefully without interrupting) something that I appreciate what they said, or how they said it, or how it points to something that I appreciate about them.
I couldn’t agree more. There’s great impact when we interrupt a conversation to notice something. It lets people know we’re listening. Thanks Rob.