Leaders Listen to Their Team
By: Eric Peterson
Tags: Team Building, Communication, Leadership, Personal Development, Listening

Hearing versus listening

“Mommy, it is funny how Daddy can hear you outside but he can’t hear you inside!”

Profound words coming from my young daughter as we were walking our neighborhood a few months ago. What could she ever mean by that?

Her simple statement got me thinking about what factors impact our ability to hear our teams. Listening well is critical in becoming a servant leader. Larry Spears in his essay, “Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders”, identifies listening at the top of his list.

This makes sense for those wanting to lead well commit to becoming superior listeners.

Ok. I’ll admit it. I struggle. A lot. I am self-aware, committed, and desire to improve. If there is hope for me and you are struggling with listening better, maybe some things I am learning might help you too with your team and in life.

Why does it matter? It matters because the perspective of our followers directly influences how the team operates. Learning and integrating follower insight into decision-making contributes to a stronger team. Doing this consistently helps us make better informed and thoughtful decisions. We may even discover our organization enabled us to go further, faster.

Diane Schilling in her Forbes article titled 10 steps to effective listening lists many ways to increase this ability.

The team frequency

Listening to the team requires we are tuned in to the right frequency.

Every team has one. A voice. A heart. The way they do things. We may not recognize their frequency at first. Few leaders do. It takes the leader’s devotion and deep commitment to help a team unpack and develop their combined gifts in ways that produce world-class results.

The sound coming from the combined voices of the team is like the frequency of a radio station. The leader’s responsibility is to tune into it to hear what the team is communicating.

Outsiders seldom realize this as their focus is typically on the teams’ results. We believe that each team deserves our care, development, and purpose. Without these things, teams struggle to achieve their full potential. The best leaders transform individual contributors into high-performing teams. Once individuals have become a team they have new opportunities to produce something remarkable.

Increase the volume

As leaders, there are times when we are tuned into the right frequency but struggle to hear the team. Expect this to occur from time to time.

When we are working together with many teams or have other voices to consider we may need to temporarily turn up the volume of the team to hear what they are telling us.

Increasing the volume is not something the team does. Instead, it becomes our responsibility to position ourselves closer to the team or the team closer to us.

Look out for static

Static happens. We can receive interference that blocks our team’s signal. Often this is temporary, occurs at predictable times, or when teams receive conflicting messages.

As leaders, it is our job to remove what impedes our team so we can receive their message clearly. The static that cannot be removed, such as a storm, requires that we walk close to our teams to ensure clear communication.

Conclusion

Listening well requires commitment and practice. In this arena, we must set the highest standard. Leading by example is critical in developing a team that listens to each other. When we tune into the right frequency and are close enough to the team to hear them even during a storm our influence increases.

Chris Voss in his book, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, advises persuasion is not about us. It is about entering the world of the other person. Chris appears on many podcasts telling his story. You can find give his talk on TED here.

Never Split The Difference | Chris Voss | TEDxUniversityofNevada

Shepherding: The art of becoming the leader others want to follow.