Show Your Team That You’re Listening

Listening is the #1 leadership skill.

Next to self-awareness, I have written more about listening than any other topic. Listening can break down walls of resistance, lower the temperature of conflict, build trust, reveal dangerous blind spots, and create a culture of sharing information.

If the leader is not listening, it’s unlikely that anyone else in the organization is listening.

If you don’t believe that already, I won’t convince you in the next three minutes. But if you know it’s true, think with me about bold ways to prove that you are a leader who listens.

Go beyond “active listening”

If you are a student of leadership, you already know the basic skill of active listening (also called mirroring or reflective listening). I’ve introduced this skill in our leadership blog, and I help executives achieve mastery in my coaching practice.

Active listening works best in one-on-one situations. When senior leaders need to reach the entire organization, they must go beyond active listening.

What follows are three practical ways to demonstrate on an organization-wide scale that leadership is listening.

#1: Build “listening time” into your schedule

When I was leading a university in Africa, I wanted all staff to know that my door was open and that I was available to them. I considered myself to be “ready to listen” at any moment. But “being available” was still a passive rather than a proactive approach, and many staff felt intimidated to approach the president’s office.

I began to build “listening time” into my schedule. For me, that meant blocking time to walk around the campus and visit different offices (IT, Library, Security, Accounting, Food Services, etc.). During these visits, I deliberately came without an agenda other than to ask how they were doing and how my office could better support them. Those visits were focused time for me to listen and pursue their agenda.

One of my clients practices "listening time" by scheduling weekly lunches with a small group of employees. These lunches are agenda-free, and the executive focuses on listening to staff needs, concerns, successes, etc.

Your scheduled “listening time” may look different, but the core practice is to put it on the calendar and proactively go where your employees are for the sole purpose of listening.

#2: Write down what you hear on a whiteboard and use it again

Executives end up leading or facilitating lots of meetings. You can visibly show people that you are an attentive listener by writing down what people say on a whiteboard or easel paper.

To make this practice truly effective, try to write their exact words instead of editing. Let their comments stand as they are, even if they say something you don’t agree with. You can discuss or debate all you want, but write down what they say to show that you heard them.

You can leverage this practice even further by taking a picture of the whiteboard and referring to their actual words again later. It could be in next week’s meeting, in a power point presentation, or in a one-on-one conversation. Whatever the case, you are showing that you both heard the group and that you remembered their input. Their words matter to you.

#3: Report on employee survey results and ask for more

One way to listen to the whole organization is through surveys. But the biggest mistake I see companies make with employee surveys is they fail to share the results with the whole organization. To your employees, it feels like a one-sided conversation where they are talking, but they can’t tell if anyone is listening. Have you ever had a phone glitch where you couldn’t tell if the other person could hear you? It’s super frustrating, and most people hang up.

Instead of withholding or procrastinating, be proactive in sharing survey results. When you do, make sure to tell staff how you are interpreting the survey (what you are making it mean). Then ask them if that is correct and give them a chance to nuance or clarify your interpretation. Now you have initiated a real, two-way conversation that can continue beyond the survey.

If you are ready for a bolder step, then read the comments that relate to your own leadership (either from that section of the survey or from a 360 Leadership Assessment). Acknowledge the validity of the perceptions, and talk about what you heard and what you are going to do to improve as a leader. If you can avoid making excuses or explaining away all the comments, you will give a powerful demonstration that you are a leader who listens.

You may have already worked hard to become a better listener. But if employees do not perceive you to be a good listener, you must take bolder steps. These three practices can help you strengthen employee perception that you are serious about listening to them and that you have earned their respect and attention when you need to speak.

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