2 Main Reasons Why Leaders
Should Improve Their Listening Skills

2 Main Reasons Why Leaders Should Improve Their Listening Skills

There are two main reasons why leaders should improve their listening skills:

To obtain information
To develop relationships

Effective listening skills allows the leader to obtain information from others, such as new perspectives, ideas and feedback.

Developing positive relationships with others creates effective team cohesion which contributes to enhanced team performance.

Obtaining feedback and developing positive relationships with others will allow the leader to learn and enhance the performance of their team.

Why Is Listening Important For Leadership?

Communication is a two-way process and many leaders will be very good at doing the talking but less so at listening. Effective leaders are able to listen intently and respectfully to others and act on the information they receive.

Listening is central to leadership so if one of your team members is speaking, give them your full attention and actively listening to what they are saying.

This would involve you giving them the ability to speak without interruption, actively listening to what they are saying and responding in a meaningful way.

Listening is a massively overlook skill for leaders. You never hear leaders saying that they are, ‘working on their listening’, but we should all be aiming to improve our ability to listen more effectively and respond to others in a more meaningful way.

Listening is one the 10 Principles of Servant Leadership and is acknowledged within this style of leadership as being a core component of effective leadership.

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1. To Obtain Information

Effective listening skills allows the leader to obtain information from others, such as new perspectives, ideas and feedback.

It doesn’t matter how good the leader thinks they are, they can always gain more insights from their team.

It is vital that leaders obtain feedback from their team to understand what is working and what is not working, and to allow new ideas and opinions to be shared.

Wisdom of the Crowd

Wisdom of the crowd is a term used to describe the collective wisdom of a group of people.

It is sometimes used in different ways but it generally refers to the idea that there is greater knowledge and experience within the whole collective group compared to any single member of the group.

So, when leading others it is important to take time to actively listening to what they have to say.

It is not just about cynically providing your team with a voice so they ‘feel’ they have been listened to, but to actually listen to them as there will be a great deal of value in what they have to say.

Never be the Smartest Person in the Room

There is a common saying in business leadership:

"Never be the smartest person in the room."

Anon Tweet

In other words, surround yourself with people who have more, or different, knowledge and experience than you do.

Employ, or seek to work with, people who can compliment you, challenge you and offer differing perspectives to you.

This will increase the value of the information you are receiving and encourage you to listen more intently to your colleagues.

So, always make sure you are not the smartest person in the room.

2. To Develop Relationships

Developing positive relationships with others creates effective team cohesion which contributes to enhanced team performance.

Listening is a core component of relationship oriented leadership.

Positive relationships can only be developed with others when both people are genuinely interested in each other.

Leaders have the opportunity to converse with others, listen to them and build rapport and empathy for them.

If social cohesion can be developed within a team their performance will increase significantly.

The Power of 'Personal Power'

There are different types of power that a leader possesses which can be used to influence the behaviour of others.

Two main types of power are ‘positional power’ and ‘personal power’.

Positional Power refers to the power that is obtained by the leader through the authority of the leader’s job role and the position they hold within the hierarchical structure of the organisation they work in. For example, the leader is the Director of the company so they have power naturally attributed by this role.

Personal power, on the other hand, is the power that is obtained by the leader through developing personal, professional relationships with others, irrespective of their formal job role or status. For example, the leader is not the Director of the Company but works closely with their team to support them and foster team cohesion, thus developing power from these interactions.

Whenever the effectiveness of these two types of power are researched, overwhelmingly leaders who exercise higher level of personal power outperform those who exercise higher levels of positional power. These findings have been duplicated in various studies in different contexts.

By listening to your team and developing more meaningful working relationships with them, you will achieve improved team cohesion, improved relationships with individuals and obtain personal power which can be exercised to motivate the team to enhanced performance.

Do Leaders Listen To Their Staff?

In 2021 I conducted a social media survey, asking over 150 people if they felt their leaders and managers listened to what they had to say at work.

It is clear from the results that the majority of people (73%) feel that they are not listened to by their leader or manager. This suggests that listening is a key area for development for many leaders.

Why Do People Feel Their Leaders Don't Listen To Them?

Following the results above, I was interested to understand more about why people felt their leaders and managers did not listen to them.

People reported three main reasons why they felt they were not being listened to by their leaders:

They reported having to repeat themselves more than once on different occasions.
They reported that they were listened to, but no action was taken, nor any feedback given.
They reported that they were simply not listened to, which they believed meant that their leader didn’t care or value what they had to say.

Author: Jonathan Sandling

Jonathan Sandling

I have an interest in humour and how it can enhance teaching, learning and leadership. I am a senior leader within the higher education sector in the UK and an EdD candidate at the University of Cambridge.