Improve Your Listening Skills for a Management Job
Stop talking and sit quietly. You will listen like a leader.
Do you like talking? And do you like listening to yourself?
Great, but you might be the only one. What about others? Do they like listening to you too? Managers often live in a world in which they are right, and others have to listen to them.
They are used to communicating from their position. So, the communication is going from the top down. No surprise there. What if the channel back is somehow blocked? What if employees can’t send their messages back to the top? What happens?
Frustration.
Like in any other relationship, listening makes a huge difference. Can you do it? Can you sit silently and listen? I make a promise to you. If you can, you will become a better leader and manager.
We don’t listen
How is it possible that you sit at a meeting and zoom out to your happy place? You hear the sound but switch off your listening. Researchers and scientists often mention that we hear with ears, but listen with the brain.
Listening is not the same as hearing and hearing is not the same as listening. — Pauline Oliveros
