The Leadership Journal

Hi all, I recently came across an article by Michael Schutzler, called the art of listening.  Below are a few key excerpts, you’ll find the full article – here.

The Art of listening

The act of listening is probably the most powerful tool you have as a leader. There are many ways to listen; the most obvious is with your ears. The act of listening is carefully paying attention to sounds, not just to words. The pace, breath, tone, and inflection of the voice all combine to provide you implied meaning, intentions, state-of-mind, and needs of the speaker.

When listening carefully, other thoughts are put aside for a moment. There should be no judgment, no discrimination, no understanding. Only hearing. Soon our brain, that hyperactive dog pulling on a leash, starts barking in with ideas, assumptions, interpretations, and decisions. If we can hold off that dog for a bit, we can listen with clarity, which leads to insights that were hidden. Insights useful to a leader. Our society acts as though listening is the same as hearing. But listening is a skill, which like any other skill is mastered through practice.

Five Steps to Listening Meticulously
1. Breathe. Find a quiet place. Sit still and comfortably with good but relaxed posture. Close your eyes. Breathe as fully and slowly as you can. Settle down.

2. Relax. Now open your eyes and look down toward the ground or to the table in front of you. You want to be awake and present while listening. What do you hear? Can you hear traffic? HVAC air blowing through a register? Birds chirping? People talking nearby? Your heartbeat? A dog barking in the distance? The blood rushing in your ears? A clock ticking? Your breath? Your mind is like a puppy. Let it roam around and listen to everything around you one-by-one, but keep your eyes open.

3. Concentrate. With your eyes still open, now count your breaths from 1 to 10. Every time your mind wanders away from this exercise, just come back to counting your breaths from 1 to 10. You will still be able to hear very well despite counting breaths. Now you are concentrating on one point amidst all the noise around you. Just breathe and count. You are training your mind puppy to sit instead of letting it roam around.

4. Wake up. You may get bored with counting to 10. You might get frustrated that you don’t get past 4 without ending up in a daydream. You might feel antsy. You might realize you are hungry. Whenever you notice that you are not counting anymore, you have a spark of awareness – you just woke up. Use that awareness and just come back to counting each breath from 1 to 10. Practice patience. Practice calm control. Practice staying present. You are training your mind puppy to come back on command, gently.

5. Practice. Do this for at least 5 minutes every day. If you enjoy it, do it for 10 or 15 minutes every day or do it several times a day. After 2 weeks, apply your newly honed concentrated attention on to the person speaking in front of you. If your mind wanders, or starts to get bored, or starts coming up with ideas while that person is speaking, use that same spark of awareness to come back to the person speaking. Come back to their voice, just like you came back to counting breaths from 1 to 10. With practice, you will notice that you aren’t drifting as much.

Leadership is a long term relationship. Listening builds relationships and makes you a more effective leader. When a person is heard fully and completely, without interruption, without debate, they are more likely to feel trust in you. They are far more likely to be receptive to whatever ideas you would like them to consider – whether it is a request you are making of them or whether it is an opinion you would like to share with them.

It doesn’t take much to practice this. If you start now, in a few weeks you will already be a more skilled listener than the majority of people on the planet. Keep practicing and people will notice. Soon you will be a more effective leader. Are you listening?

Michael Schutzler

Earlier this month, I attended a great leadership development event – featuring Michael Schutzler. I’d read the man’s bio and I was very intrigued by the depth of his International work experience.  As we kicked off the session, he asked for feedback on what people wanted to get out of the session.

One key theme which resonated with everyone – was the desire to understand key leadership traits of great leaders. Here are the 4 key traits which Michael defined and explained. All great leaders are Great Listeners, Great Storytellers, Great Negotiators & Great Judges of people/character.

Great Listeners – I cover this trait in more detail in my next post. However, here are some ideas to think about:

        I.            The average attention span of your colleagues in corporate America is less than 60 seconds. The “always on” nature of  electronic media has helped drive down attention spans in the U.S and around the world.

      II.            Try to increase your attention span by actively listening to others – active listening will give you an edge over other leaders.

    III.            Actively ask questions that force you into listening mode.

    IV.            93% of communication is non-verbal – active listening is a great way to communicate with others.

Great Storytellers – Leaders who are great storytellers understand how to provide context for how each person’s role provides real value to the entire organization.

        I.            Good leadership is about developing great relationships, communicating effectively with diverse audiences

      II.            You cannot consistently tell great stories unless you truly believe in your ideas, so – be authentic, be creative, report facts

    III.            Be expressive – your body language should tell a story about your passion and your level of engagement with your audience

    IV.            You cannot consistently convince people to go that extra mile for the team, without creating a compelling vision, through storytelling

I’ll address the remaining 2 traits in a few weeks…….