Listen to Learn & Lead

“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening
when you’d have preferred to talk.” – Doug Larson.

Leaders have a bias toward action. That’s a good thing until they stop listening and learning. Unfortunately, many have. When you are listening, it is impossible to do anything else. Listening requires the alignment of all of your faculties. Your body language, your ears, your eyes, your mind, your voice, a complete commitment.

There’s so Much More to Listening

You’re listening when you use your voice to gain more information, more understanding, more clarification. It’s a process of uncovering what another believes, feels, and wants. So, listening is much more than keeping our mouths shut.

Tell the truth. When you rewind your last significant conversation, what really happened?

  • You heard enough already so you started formulating your response instead of listening.

Since we have been on both sides of the conversation, you’d think we would embrace the value and develop the skill of listening. But many leaders actually get worse as they age!

Not everyone who grows older grows wiser. They just get older without any useful benefits to others. You’ve heard it before, you know it all. You can almost finish what people are trying to say. Answers, prescriptions; you have them all. So, why waste everyone’s time? Just give them the answer and be done with it.

Listening to Learn and Lead

This unconscious attitude is at best short-sighted. Assuming you do not know it all, you might actually learn something new. Even more important, listening creates a culture of transformational work and relationships. When we become better listeners, we create a culture of learning.

Learning happens when we “realize” or “discover” new information, especially within a community. This is when learning sticks. When we resist the temptation to give the answers instead of discovering them together through listening, everyone wins.

Listening requires more investment on the front end but pays long-term dividends by turning transactions into transformational relationships and culture.

Explore More Content

Ready to discover more essential skills for effective leadership beyond listening? Explore other content on our blogs and podcast pages to unleash your full leadership potential. Or if you’re up for it right now, check out these suggestions to start improving your leadership game. After all, great leaders take every chance they get to improve!

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