I strongly believe that great managers and leaders have one thing in common when it comes to soft skills – they can listen very, very well. I’ve written briefly about this before but within the context of being an introverted leader.
Today, I want to go a bit broader and share a short, simple, but very effective process for how you can actually become a better listener and as a result, be a much better leader.
Credit to Amanda Ripley of Good Conflict for sharing this process.
Situations when active listening is most important
Whilst being a good listener is useful in most situations, there are a few where you should make a conscious effort to follow the following process. Especially if you’re not a natural when it comes to active listening.
Resolving conflict
If you are in a situation where you are resolving conflict, particularly between team members, then active listening is very, very important. If you are trying to balance the views of different people, who may also be emotional, then you need to fully understand what they are saying. You need to hear everything that they have to say and then use that information to move them forward and towards a resolution.
If you don’t listen carefully, you can’t do this. It really is as simple as that.
Talking about someone’s personal development and ambitions
You’ll never care about someone’s personal development and their personal goals as much as they do. Yes, even the very best managers can’t do this. We will always care more about our own development than anyone else does.
And that’s fine.
The best that you can do is to demonstrate that you care a lot about someone and their development.
You do this by actively listening to their ambitions, goals and what they want to achieve at work.
During one-on-one meetings when you discuss personal development, make sure that you are listening to someone carefully and ask questions that allow someone to go deeper into this.
A process for active listening and showing that you care
Right, as mentioned earlier, this is a simple process. But don’t underestimate the power of it just because it seems very simple.
Step 1 – listen and focus
Start by actually listening to what the person is saying and try to focus on what seems to be most important to them – NOT to you.
This is important because when we’re listening to someone, we can let our mind slip into a mode where we’re actually processing what their words mean to us. We think about the consequences of what they’re saying on what we need to do next or how we need to change things.
It’s understandable, but you need to catch yourself doing this and get your mind back onto the conversation and person in front of you.
Listen carefully to them and try to listen for things such as:
- What is the core issue that they have?
- If they are upset, what is it that they are actually upset about?
- What do they really want to tell you?
This puts you in a position to get all of the information that you need to help someone.
Step 2 – summarise what you’ve heard in your own language
Once they’re finished talking, take a few moments to play back to them what you’ve heard. But don’t literally repeat their words back to them. Instead, summarise in your own words and aim to describe your understanding of what they’ve said.
This not only helps ensure that you’ve listened well and understood, but it’s a big step in showing the person that you’re actually listening and trying to understand them.
Step 3 – ask them if you’ve understood correctly
After you’ve summarised what you heard from them, ask them if you got it right. Ask if you’ve missed anything or misunderstood any of their points. Be genuinely curious about asking this question and don’t be afraid to be told that you’ve gotten something wrong – that’s a good thing. It’s better to know this than push forward with the wrong information.
They may well correct you or add something in that you missed – listen carefully again. You’ll probably find that they actually elaborate a little more during this process and reveal more about what’s going on or in their heads. It’s likely that they’ll reveal more about what a conflict was really about or what they care most about.
This helps you of course, but most importantly, it helps them trust that you actually want to understand what’s going on and to get their perspective.
Now, only when they acknowledge that you’ve understood everything should you move onto more questions, learning more or starting to try and resolve the situation.
Step 4 – moving onto a resolution or outcome
Whilst I can’t give you an exact process for this step, I can emphasise the importance of the previous steps and why they will help you get to the best possible resolution or outcome.
When you first sit down to help someone, you can have the right intentions and genuinely want to help them, but it’s very easy to skip the steps above and jump straight to trying to help them by offering advice or sharing a similar experience.
We think that we are helping whereas in reality, we haven’t even taken the time to fully understand the situation. Therefore, we don’t know for sure if the advice we’re offering is any good. We don’t know if the similar experience that we’ve had is actually that similar and relevant.
As a result, not only could your advice or resolution be wrong, but the person receiving it may lose all trust in you too – because you haven’t actively listened to them, don’t understand what they’re feeling and therefore, they don’t trust that you know how to help.
