Jack Pyle: The Face to Face Maximizer

Leadership Communication: 10 tips to listen better

Tweet

 

Learning to listen effectively will improve your leadership communication skills. It will help you build better relationships at work and at home. It also will improve your ability to solve problems and reduce conflict.

Listening is the most important skill I ever learned. It is an amazing tool to help solve business problems. It will also help you build better relationships at work, home and in your community. Listening helped me to have a wonderful loving partnership with my late wife for 38 years and now with my new partner Linda. It also helped me to be the kind of father I wanted to be. 

Here are 10 tips to become skillful at the listening part of leadership communication. They will help you be a better leader.

1. Be aware of your biases. Your preconceived notions and attitudes often prevent you from hearing opposing facts/views. We hear things as we expect them to be. We often dismiss - or do not hear - statements that do not fit our belief system and values.

2. Let the other person talk until they have finished. Be willing to take the time to listen. This is hard for some people at first. Just slow down, take a deep breath and wait for the other to say what they need to say completely.

3. Look at the other person.

4. Stop doing what you are doing. Eliminate distractions. In one of my listening workshops a young man said that when his mother phones him she asks if he is watching television. If he is, she asks him to turn it off so they can talk. Stop watching and using the computer, too. Effective listening requires your full attention on the speaker. It is impossible to multi-task and be fully involved in listening.

5. Encourage with brief verbal responses, such as: yes, uh-huh, m-m-m, okay.

6. Encourage with nonverbal responses: nodding head, leaning in.

7. Acknowledge their feelings. Show empathy. Do not tell them they should not feel the way they do. Express their feeling by saying, "Sounds like you are frustrated." If you say the wrong feeling, the other person will immediately tell you exactly what they are feeling. This listening response from you lets the other know you understand how they are feeling. When feelings are intense, using this tip helps calm the other down.

8. Paraphrase. Briefly repeat what you heard in your own words so the other person knows you got it. This takes practice. You will often hear something different than was said. When that happens, the other person will say it again to help you understand.

9. Mirror the other's physical positions. Be subtle so that it is not obvious.

10. Do not give advice or lecture. That's not listening.

Want more information about listening?

You can listen to my interview with Michael Rogers, Vice President of Communication at the Small Business Association of Michigan. Listening to it will help you know how to improve your listening skills and better communicate with your employees and customers, as well as family and friends. Just click the button below.

Get more advice and tips on growing your business by regularly listening to the Small Business Association of Michigan free audio seminars on your computer or mobile device. Go to http://www.sbam.org/radio and download at your convenience!

Photo by Jeroen van Oostrom