Leadership Skills in the Workplace

Maintaining Gains Made

LEADERSHIP BRIEFS

03 Listen Carefully!

Objectives

Become better listeners, no matter what your current level of skill.

Speak less and listen more.

Lesson

Read the following writing by an anonymous author on “listening.” Ask your group members to think about their own listening behavior as you read it.

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen!! All I asked was that you listen, not talk or do – just hear me.

Advice is cheap: $1 will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same paper.

And I can do for myself: I’m not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness.

But…when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious, and I don’t need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.

So please listen and just hear me.

And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn; and I’ll listen to you.

--Anonymous

Questions for Group Discussion

Read the passage through entirely once. Then read two or three lines at a time and ask for specific reactions. What struck people about this passage? If no one offers any comment, after a few minutes pose the following question as a discussion-starter.

1. Do you think it’s true that a speaker may very well not want advice or want your help in solving their problem?
   
   
2. If this is true, what should you do instead of giving advice or a solution? [Answer: don’t talk; remain silent and attentive]
   
   
3. What do you do when people come to you with a personal problem, or something else that is very challenging for you to handle?
   

Exercises

Ask the group to pair-up with a partner. Each person thinks of a real problem or a made-up but realistic problem of some depth. They explain this problem to the listener. The listener’s job is to say as few words as possible in two minutes, yet show interest and keep the speaker talking. Then reverse roles so the speaker becomes the listener. Remember, no “solving the problem” or taking the focus off the speaker.

Discuss what happened in the role-plays. How successful were the listeners in not talking? Were they successful in showing interest?

Questions for Group Discussion

1. When should you use this kind of listening with an employee, peer, or family member?
   
   
2. What are the advantages of good listening with your employees; in other words, why bother with all this?
   
   
3. What is something you can make a commitment to do to be a better listener for the rest of the week?