Focused and Empathetic Listening is the Essence of Leadership

"I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening."

Larry King

Monday morning, first meeting of the week. Your team's meeting. There are eight members and participants, five of them onsite, 3 of them online. You greet each other cheerfully. The meeting has its agenda, sent by yourself when it was set. And yet everyone, including you, is trying to make his point, without paying much attention to what has been said previously.

Have you ever been in a similar position?

Photo credit: Eik Karits, Unsplash

People of power often do:

"President Franklin D. Roosevelt got tired of smiling that big smile and saying all the usual things at those White House receptions. So, one evening he decided to find out whether anybody was paying attention to what he was saying. As each person came up to him with extended hand, he flashed his big smile and said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.”

People would automatically respond with comments such as “How lovely.” or “Continue on with your great work.” Nobody listened to what he was saying, except for one foreign diplomat. When the president said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning,” the diplomat responded softly, “I’m sure she had it coming to her."

Joking aside, especially nowadays, one of the main reasons for the lack of understanding in communication is that we most often listen to reply, instead of doing so to comprehend the other people’s point of view. Despite the fact whether we are on a leadership position or not, this is a typical commonly spread glitch in communication.

Listening empathetically is a must, but it is usually hard to achieve, at least for most of us. To become an empathetic listener, one must train on a daily basis certain qualities, such as:

• Focus predominantly outwards;

• Be resilient;

• Be 100% present - here and now;

• Be open;

• Be eager to learn;

• Connect on emotional level, as well;

• Listen for the things being said;

• Listen for the things not being said;

• Avoid labelling people and/or actions;

• Be calm.

Unless we trained ourselves out of it, most of us focus inwards when we communicate. It is normal to be that way, but we can become more productive, when we try to focus our attention almost entirely outwards on our partner/s in communication.

It takes serious amount of resilience, especially when we experience difficulties to connect with the other person. Everyone can do the job when it is easy and natural. The art is to be able to do it with people when things do not "click" the right way in communication.

That is why it is very important to maintain focused on the partner in the process, on his/her ideas, on their point of view, on their emotional state. It means to cut the clutter and be present for the other person, instead of our own selfish interest and goals.

The more open and willing to learn we are, the more success in communication with our team members we have. And that doesn't mean to seemingly agree with the other person's point of view, and then to do what we had in mind in the first place, but rather to consider the possibility to agree and accept the ideas of others.

Being on the same emotional level, but as a conscious choice, usually contributes on one hand to help the other person be more open and willing to share, and on other - to see, hear and feel things from, sometimes, totally different perspective.

When we are focused and listen to understand, it is quite possible to be able to comprehend most of the main ideas that are being communicated with us.

But to get the main messages in full we must entirely focus as long as the verbal aspect of the information, but also the nonverbal and paraverbal aspects as well. We are not only listening for what has been said, but for what hasn't been said as well. We seek for congruency in all elements of the message transfer.

And do whatever it takes to avoid one of the deadliest sins in communication, e.g. labelling people and/or actions.

Being focused predominantly outwards, helps staying calm no matter the circumstances, and staying calm no matter the circumstances is a very good foundation to spread this calmness among all members of our team, which is important when making day to day decisions in our everyday professional and personal lives.

Those abilities, in my opinion, are the essence of leadership.

So, next time you have your team's meeting, you greet each other cheerfully, sit back, focus and just listen.