Learning to Listen

Listening skills can trump a lot of other personal skills when it comes to finding good managers. An active listener can help a business run more efficiently, resolve issues better and be more responsive to the customer.

 Importance of listening skills ?

When a leader pays attention to what his team has to say, it can help him better manage them to produce optimal results. Active listening can help a manager pick up on cues from employees. For instance, being alert to passing remarks or recalling details of conversations can often be more useful for information gathering than a direct question. When an employee knows you are really listening, it helps you build a relationship based on trust. If they feel their voice is heard, they are far more likely to come to you with their problems, ideas or solutions. It makes you far more approachable besides making you seem like someone who they can count on to hear them out.With clients being a good listener can translate to business benefit. If your customer airs certain views or mentions their problems directly or indirectly in conversations, an active listener will be quick to spot these flags. Knowing what specific areas to address in your solution for the customer or prospect immediately ups your chances of creating something that will truly solve their problems. This can translate into more top-line growth.

 

Building active listening skills

Chances are, like many others, you too feel that you are an above average listener. Get a third party to evaluate you through workshops and training sessions and you might be surprised by the results. Quite often, leaders find that there is significant scope for improvement when it comes to listening skills. So how does one go from being an average listener to an active listener when looking to improving listening skills? For starters, you may need to work with professional leadership training experts, to undergo training on communication and listening skills. A third party will be able to assess your listening skills and help you identify potential problem areas. Your multitasking might be getting in the way of having meaningful conversations where your co-workers or team members feel heard. Or you might just be easily distracted. Perhaps you get restless and are impatient for the other person to just ‘cut to the chase’. Maybe you are dismissive of ideas you find unfeasible. But there could be a better way to respond.

Leadership and communication training workshops will teach listening skills and you will learn how to engage with the other person when they are speaking. This may involve responses in the affirmative to show you are following them, or non-verbal cues like a nod of the head, leaning forward as opposed to slouching or leaning away; that assure the other person that you are listening.

 

Listening is as much about responding

There are arguably more people who act without listening than the other way round. But it is also important to ensure that after listening to someone you demonstrate your understanding of the problem by evaluating the issue and acting accordingly. If you have heard them out, you need to ensure you have also completely understood what they were trying to communicate. For anything you are unsure about, be sure to ask. Questions are a big part of active listening. Paraphrase what they have said and repeat it back to confirm you have the gist of what they said. It will also send the other person the right signals – that you are listening to every word they say.

Once you master the art of listening, team management becomes that much easier. Ease the way for yourself and your team by getting everyone involved in a workshop that provides listening skills exercises and you will see the difference for yourself. To learn more about listening skills for leaders, please contact Leaders Speakers.

https://leadersspeakers.com/cultivating-a-team-environment/