More specifically, strong listening skills are essential to effective leadership. We often see executives make the common mistake of not listening to their followers. There are two primary reasons leaders fail to listen: 1) Because they are in charge, some leaders put undue stress on themselves to produce every good idea, every solution, and have THE answer. They feel that if they do not, they are not leading. 2) Often, leaders feel they do not have time to hear what others think. Both these notions create a feeling of just get it done. Put a check next to that item and move on to the next. Sound familiar?
Ironically, leaders who fail to collaborate struggle to meet their goals. Acting without collaboration omits information critical to making informed decisions and loses support of followers.
So how does listening help? Attentive leaders grow the organization’s knowledge. Executives routinely invest valuable time, effort and capital on recruiting, hiring, and retaining “good” people only to underutilize them particularly when confronted with challenges. We teach leaders to defer to expertise. Often the solution to a problem is found in simple conversation with the expert who is actually doing the work. All the leader must do is listen to their ideas. When Vetergy conducts assessments, we listen closely to the people on the front lines engaged in the work as well as the leadership team. We provide confidential surveys to hear what they are feeling and learn what frustrations and problems they are observing.
A second advantage of listening is employee engagement. By listening to ideas, leaders activate a sense of ownership, commitment, and accountability to the outcome. Inattentive leaders, on the other hand, appear neglectful and uncaring. Through good listening, a leader can also get a glimpse into the personal side of team members. Knowing their worries, their joys, their frustrations, and their opinions helps a leader understand what might be triggering larger issues. A collaborative, supportive, and productive team begins with an attentive leader.
Listening skills can be tricky and complex; and to be effective must be intentionally developed. At Vetergy, we find good leadership is the cornerstone to operational resilience. No program will realize its full value without the commitment, resolve and example established by all levels of leadership.
I invite you to think about how you are listening to your entire team, both the senior leadership and the workers who are performing the day-to-day operations.
Our goal at Vetergy is to help you operationalize resilience through enlightened leadership. Click here.