Leadership And Listening:
If you want to lead, you’d better know how to listen to what is going on in your organization.
If you are going to inspire, mentor, stretch and retain today’s workers, you have to hear what they are saying (Tichy and DeRose, The Leadership Engine). Even so, hearing alone is not enough.
A leader has to create areas in or around the company where conversations can occur in order to ensure that forums for peer-to-peer conversations, and the “third places” for dialogues about the work, exist across both internal and external boundaries (see: The “Third Place” Way, by Chris Mooney at http://www.epn.org/commonwealth/mooney-c0008.html).
By third places, we’re referring to settings other than workstations, where informal conversations are encouraged to happen.
This can be as simple as making coffee available in a place where people can talk, or putting a picnic table under a tree by the parking lot.
It could also mean relatively effortless things such as having a supply of note pads and pencils on lunchroom tables, so workers can capture good ideas as they talk during lunch or on breaks.
(Don’t think that workers will think about work when they‘re on break? In my experience, if they are intrigued by their work, and if someone will listen to their ideas, they will brainstorm ideas and troubleshoot problems on their own time, if the opportunity presents itself.)
Chris Mooney’s paper explores how authentic listening serves as an indispensable tool for leaders at all levels.
Leadership is about understanding what you’re doing well enough to nurture conditions that sustain a healthy, adaptive organization, while minimizing forces that constrain its efforts (Senge et al., The Dance Of Change).
Relationships are key to sharing needed information effectively. Workers are interdependent. They can be thought of as an organic network arranged to produce value.
In networks, every component has the potential to communicate with every other component.
This vibrant model was derived from the scientific study of the operations of living systems.
Whereas the icon of the hierarchical organization was the machine, the icon of the networked system is the living organism. Think of the role of a leader in a network. How do you influence without disrupting?
How do you monitor without assuming responsibility for thinking and initiative?
The emphasis in the networked system is a highly social one.
Whereas the goal of the hierarchical model was predictability and continuity, the networked organization seeks agility and adaptability.
In the industrial age the physical strength of workers powered the organization, but in the post-modern economy, workers’ knowledge provides the impetus that creates value.
These changes have necessitated an evolution in our thinking about workers and leadership.
Back in the old days workers were referred to as “hands.”
The boss was the only thinker necessary in the business. He knew what to do and he would tell you what you needed to know.
The message was, “Do as I say, when I say, and how I say.” We had one brain and many extra hands to implement the great man’s thoughts. It can be a heady position.
However, if this is your idea of leadership, you are at least a generation out of date. Find a time machine or change your ways.
Leading well requires work. When done well, leadership may appear effortless, but it isn’t.
Effective listening is a fundamental part of the work of a leader. Listening requires that you stop and absorb new data accurately, mentally sort and categorize it into useful information, and perhaps, act on it within the business context.
It is important to hear the content, understand the context and evaluate the implications of this information.
Communication Derailers:
There are innumerable reasons and excuses used to explain the appearance of communication derailers in organizations.
There are always barriers to doing anything well. Some of those barriers are legitimately difficult to navigate.
Bright people can be counted on to find reasons to explain their performance shortfalls. So what? If excellence were easy to attain it would be commonplace.
Countless books have been written telling you how to communicate clearly, or listen well. These texts tell you to clear your desk, make eye contact, say, “um-hum,” repeat what’s said back to the speaker, frequently nod your head, etc. Good advice, but trivial. Most of us really do know how to communicate that we are listening. What is missing in dysfunctional communication is the honest engagement of one’s self in the interaction--- an absence of authenticity.
When you don’t listen well, for example, you’ve already decided, “I have reasons not to be engaged.” Or, you’ve decided that, “I do not feel the need to be authentically present in this conversation, at this time.”
We call these, and other dysfunctional mindsets, “communication derailers.”(Elash & Long, 2001)
11. Identify Conversation Derailers
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Tool Preview:Enables you to identify three broad categories of behaviors that lead to conversations becoming derailed. [Read Now]
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