3 SURE-FIRE Ways to improve your leadership listening

By Allison O'Brien

When I hear someone proclaim they are a good listener, I take a pause.
 
“We can’t anoint ourselves as great listeners,” explained Michael Reddington in a recent interview with Forbes. “Only those around us—our family, coworkers, friends, and acquaintances—can entrust us with the title.”
 
Picture someone in your life who you consider to be a good listener. Can you describe the specific behaviors they exhibit during a conversation? It’s likely you notice:

• They are fully present in conversation, not succumbing to distraction or multitasking.
• You feel like they are truly interested in what you have to say and participate in the dialogue.
• You leave the interaction feeling heard and understood.
• They ask thoughtful questions that inspire deeper thinking and further conversation.
• They ask for your perspective and respect your opinion.

 
The people we consider to be good listeners leave us feeling heard. And at our core, humans long to feel heard and understood. But how can we know if the people we are listening to actually feel heard? To truly gauge the quality of our own listening, we have to ask our conversational partners for their honest assessment.
 
It’s a similar situation with leadership.
 
I am a bit wary of the person who proclaims themselves to be a great leader. Only those we lead, manage, or mentor can speak to the quality of our leadership. The reasons someone would consider you a great leader are similar to the items on the good listener list. They believe:

• You authentically care about their well-being.
• You take the time to genuinely connect to their experience by asking questions and soliciting feedback.
• You control your biases and expectations.
• You inspire collaboration and innovation by encouraging healthy conflict and celebrating different perspectives and ideas.
• If and when you do make a unilateral decision, it happens only after taking others’ input into consideration.
• You manage your emotions and stay calm and inquisitive, especially in the midst of challenging interactions.

 
Countless studies prove the quality of the leader determines the level of engagement of the individual and the productivity of the team. Goodhire recently surveyed 3,000 full-time employees to understand this relationship. They found that 82% of employees surveyed said they would consider quitting their job because of poor leadership. In another study, 65% of employees would take a better manager over a pay raise. This was validated in a 2021 Gallup poll, where findings proved it takes a 20% pay raise to lure an employee away from a manager who truly engages them, yet almost nothing to poach a disengaged employee.
 
Many of us want to lead. But a title isn’t enough. We have to be someone others want to follow. A crucial contributing factor to the perception of stellar leadership is a leader’s ability to communicate effectively. In a recent Interact/Harris Poll, 91% of 1,000 employees surveyed think that their leaders lack communication skills. When leaders are perceived as “bad” listeners, it directly impacts the bottom line with low engagement, high turnover, and workplace failures, costing companies between $450 and $550 billion annually. This is precisely why the most impactful skill a leader can develop is their listening.
 
Here are 3 ways to improve your leadership listening:

1. Increase Your Self-Awareness – It’s widely accepted that we all have distinct ways of expressing ourselves, but research also shows that individuals listen in unique ways because listening is a cognitive function and brain-based habit. When you learn how you listen, you become acutely aware of what draws your attention and what might have you disengage and succumb to distractions. To improve workplace listening, consider The ECHO Listening Profile. ECHO is a scientifically-validated, cognitive instrument that measures what leaders listen to and for, as well as what they might be unconsciously filtering out. It is the first listening assessment developed for business contexts, providing tangible, measurable, and actionable insights that can be implemented immediately for strengthened leadership and team productivity.
2. Pause and Sense – Before entering a meeting, conversation, or any other situation where listening is important, slow down and check in with yourself to see how grounded and present you are. The only thing we can control in our communication is ourselves. By taking the time to pause and sense our level of presence, we develop a starting point from which to direct our listening focus. When you commit to consistently checking in with yourself, you become increasingly aware of your level of engagement and present to what you may be unintentionally filtering out.
3. Minimize Distractions – If you find yourself lacking focus, adjust your physical environment to support optimal listening: close your laptop, silence your phone, and allocate enough time for the conversation. However, even if we have the best intentions, know our own listening habits, and are committed to listening, sometimes it’s still not enough. We are hardwired to be distracted. It’s physiology. Most people speak at a rate of about 125 to 150 words a minute, but our brain has the capacity to process 500 to 700 words a minute, depending on which study you read. If you do the math, you’ll see that we still have 75% of our processing power left over, and our minds can’t help but seek something to do with that power. We succumb to distraction. The specific distraction isn’t important. It’s the realization that we are distracted that allows us to re-engage and return to listening. 

 
The qualities of good listening and great leadership share the same underlying themes. The most influential, trusted leaders are great listeners. They are present and deeply attentive to their conversational partners. They are genuinely interested and appreciate dialogue inspired by various perspectives. They are patient, remain present, and leave others with the most fundamental need and desire met—to be heard and understood.