As a leader do you feel that your team look to you for answers? Do you feel that the key requirement of a leader is to provide direction? Sometimes, with this mindset, you can find yourself dominating the conversation which may mean the views of your team aren’t being heard. It means, if there are ten of you in the room and you dominate the conversation, only 10% of the brainpower in the room is being applied to the discussion. Your leadership challenge is to engage the remaining 90%. So, sometimes the most important thing you can do as a leader is be quiet and listen.
If this sounds like you, in your next team meeting, or just a general conversation with members of your team, try being the last person to speak. Invite others to put forward their thoughts and ideas before you provide yours and as they put those ideas forward make sure you listen, really listen, to what they have to say.
Be prepared to build on the thoughts your team put forward. Far too often, instead of really listening, we “listen to reply” waiting for our turn to put forward our ideas/thoughts or looking for a way to build on what has been said that validates our opinions. What you need, in the words of Stephen Covey is to ‘”seek first to understand, then be understood”.
Letting other speak first has a number of advantages: if you listen to their ideas, really listent, it helps the people you engage with feel valued and included in the discussion; their ideas might just be better than yours; however, perhaps more importantly, listening encourages your team to seek their own solutions which frees up your time to focus on other things. After all, put yourself in their shoes; if you are always given the answer, what’s the point in making any contribution to the debate.
Even if you don’t recognise this habit, try being the last to speak for a while and see if it makes a difference to your team.
