LEAD - Listening Skills

A friend of mine who is a corporate leader and thinker remarked recently that the problems of the world could be summed up by the lack of leadership and the presence of injustice in the world. He also believes that business where there is the absence of injustice and the presence of leadership can move the world forward in a substantial way. Considering that injustice is about the lack of fairness, inequity, corruption, tyranny, repression, exploitation, and intolerance it seemed that the answer or at least a small step forward was to improve relationships between people which at its core is one of the strong tenets of effective leadership.

Relationships in the workplace are focused on the way employees, supervision, and the organization (senior management) treat each other. How they talk to each other, behave toward each other, and deal with one another is how the Merriam-Webster dictionary views relationships. A key leadership skill to shape and improve the work environment and perhaps the world is to develop effective listening skills. Good listening skills are important to relationships because at the core of sustainable positive relationships are trust and respect which can be mutually found through effective listening to one another.

There are a number of scholarly works that spell out the characteristics of effective listening. In business and in building teams of people these are some of the best practices:

• Be involved in the conversation and listen actively. Show interest, nod, ask questions, and paraphrase what is being said and learned. 
• Ask open ended questions by avoiding "yes & no" questions and process the response with an open mind that wants to learn not a mind already made up.
• Stay focused on the conversation. Do not get distracted rather concentrate on the moment. Since thought is faster than speech, stay in the moment by summarizing and checking back to the point being made.
• Stay open to the possibilities of changing position and hold your fire. Do not judge until the other position is fully understood. The stronger you feel about your position, the more open to the possibilities you need to become.
• Listen for the idea and rationale. Resist nit-picking the facts, find areas of common ground of agreement. Emphasize the areas of agreement and stay away from focusing on the differences.
• Work at listening by good eye contact, positive posture, and engaging actively. Resist interrupting thought trains and learn to be present with the other person.

Let me know if you have other best practices. Good listening skills promote and multiply good leadership. Good leadership fights injustice. The business improves and sustains performance. At least that is the premise of good leadership being promoted here.