Failure to Listen = Failure to Lead pt. 2

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In my last post, which you can find here, I left you with a challenge.

The Challenge: Don’t let your egotistical listening habits prevent you from being a leader that connects with people.

I hope you saw improvement in the way you listen.

We all have unique experiences that have shaped the way we work, think, live and communicate. We often have a lot to say. When we talk to others, our thoughts are not always organized or well thought out. We must remain patient with people as we communicate with them.

The next stage of listening habits in which all people can find themselves is experiential listening. Experiential listening is where experiences from one person are used as a frame of reference that may or may not be relevant to the other person.

We all make assumptions about other’s thoughts, feelings, and intent based on our own perspective. I’m not sure where I’ve heard this, but I use it often at work, “a customer’s perception is 100% reality”. Every person has their own frame of reference used as a filter to hear and interpret every conversation. When we focus our listening, we increase our ability as effective listeners. Our goals as listeners is to understand people’s ideas, point-of-views, and rationales. We do not have to agree with what they are saying. The best thing we can do is focus on the content and meaning of what’s being communicated to us. If they ask for advice, share it. However, the primary aim is to listen.  The aim is not to teach the person a lesson by using your own experiences.

Listening is a complex skill. It is not something that is learned over night. It takes patience, desire, and intentionality to be a good listener. I am not an expert. Nor do I claim to be one.  But it is something that I have been intentionally working on. When we use experiences from our past to share anecdotes to remedy someone else’s problems we end up creating more problems. They have their own problems. I find myself in this stage of listening habits more than any other one. Some of the best advice that was given to me on this topic has slowly, but surely, helped me with changing the way I communicate with others. I have noticed that when I ask clarifying questions, instead of giving answers to a person, he/she usually finds the answer to their question or find a solution to the problem on their own.

My desires, my experiences, and my self-centered ego gets in the way of communicating with others. The way that I combat the urge to use experiential listening is to remember that life and leadership are not about me. I published a post on humility not too long ago titled, “It’s Not About You.” My conversations and actions should be others-centered. We get a clear picture of this from Jesus. Love is the highest motivation for a leader. Jesus loved us so much that He died in our stead. Not just for us, but in place of us. If we don’t love the people we lead, we shouldn’t try to lead them.

I have my work cut out for me when it comes to breaking this bad listening habit. I know that the more I practice my listening and communication skills, the chances are they will become more refined. Growth doesn’t happen in a day, but a little every day.

The next post and last segment of Failure to Listen = Failure to Lead pt. 3 is on its way. I hope you are as encouraged as I am to listen more and speak less as we lead our teams. Let’s show them that we care for them. We can’t add value to people if we don’t see value in them. Listening to someone shows we value him/her.

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