Active listening is a pivotal leadership skill, essential for innovation, psychological safety and even employee retention and engagement.
Most leaders think they're good listeners, but the reality is that active listening is a hard skill that takes practice. But it's one of the most powerful skills to learn, develop and nurture - certainly not a ‘soft’ skill to be overlooked; rather, it should be recognised as the foundation of visionary, strategic and agile leadership.
Colleagues facing real or perceived challenges need to be heard, and their leaders need to know how to listen to them…and actually hear them.
Instinctively, we all have different responses to someone who comes to us to be heard.
For many of us, especially leaders who lead with a lot of extroversion, it’s tempting to jump in and ‘help’ straight away. It may be that we think it’s what they want, or that we're all 'pressed for time' and under pressure at work, so we try to solve the problem quickly and efficiently...
But we need to take a different approach. We’re humans, not machines.
Even in the most fast-paced, thrusting, goal-busting workplace environments where confidence and positivity are king, there still must be room for colleagues to bring concerns and challenges, express themselves freely and feel heard. Not everyone feels confident and sorted all the time. Even your best performers have doubts, and may face complex or sensitive dilemmas that need your ear.
Active listening is not all about solutions...
Listening well, and responding in a way that can help your colleague unblock an issue for themselves, can be a particular challenge for more extraverted personalities.
If you fall on the extroverted side of the In
sights Discovery colour wheel, even if you’re an empathetic leader able to appreciate the dilemmas of others, it may be that your ‘always on’, can-do, problem-solving approach may need some adjustment. Sometimes, we need to resist the natural urge to dominate and ‘solve’ or offer quick- fixes.
What do we mean by ‘extraverted energy’?
At Insights we talk about having a preference for introversion or extroversion as defined by the different Insights Discovery colour energies, but not ‘being’ one or the other.
Typically (not always), those who lead with Cool Blue and Earth Green energy lean towards a more introverted preference, while those who lead with Fiery Red or Sunshine Yellow energy tend to have a more extroverted preference.
Those who lead with extroversion direct their energy outwards towards other people - and gain energy from interacting with others. Introverted energy focuses and gains energy from more inward, solitary, thoughtful activities.
It can be particularly hard for people who lead with extraverted energy to take a breath, hold back and bite their tongue when someone comes to them with a concern or dilemma. Especially if they’re time-pressed and already facing a packed day of meetings and challenges. The temptation to quickly hear out the ’problem’, be actively ‘helpful’ and ‘move it on’ can be immense.
If this sounds familiar, pause for a moment...
You wouldn’t want your supervisor or leader to hurry along your issue or diminish your concerns if the tables were turned. When something troubles you and you need perspective or support, your desire to set out the facts and the blockers that bother you or hinder progress feels pressing. You hope that the person meant to guide you will listen and give you their full attention. It would feel disappointing -and maybe even insulting- if they didn’t.
That’s how your employees feel when they come to you. Whether it’s an interpersonal, workplace-political dilemma that’s causing anxiety or stress, a difficult client issue, or a skills-related problem that’s stopping them from progressing their goals, they’re asking for your support.
Be careful not to assume what else they need until they’ve told you how they feel and what they’re facing.
Does active listening really make a difference? An experiment to find out:
Next time a team member comes to you, dial up your self-awareness (and others-awareness), shift your extraverted energy a little further back (regardless of whether your colleague is introverted or extraverted themselves), and remember that sometimes…
… silence is golden!
• Pause what you’re doing and give them your full attention. Limit all external distractions. Prioritise this opportunity to help someone get unstuck, just by listening. Silently.
• When they start sharing, STOP TALKING. Resist the urge to speak over them or jump in to sympathise or counter their opinions, or offer what you think is necessary context. Two reasons for this. First, the context is initially less important than understanding what the speaker is feeling, and secondly, being a leader doesn’t mean you need to lead every conversation.
• Don’t anticipate what they’re about to say or try to form responses or questions in your head. Again, at this stage, it’s not the data that’s important, it’s how the person feels. No questions are needed unless the speaker invites them.
• When there is a natural pause, hold back. Stay silent. This gives the speaker time to gather their thoughts, then go more deeply into what they are thinking.
• If the silence is long (at least three our four times your silence comfort level), echo what you’ve heard and how you think they may be feeling. “What I’m hearing is that you had this interaction today that you had hoped would be smooth, but it wasn't, and you’re disappointed about it.” Your team member now has time to accept or reject your empathy, which will require them to go deeper into what they’re really feeling.
• Even if the solution is clear to you, stay silent, and allow them space to get to a solution that resonates with them, themselves.
For Fiery Red extraverted (Thinking) leaders, the task-orientated temptation to solve and to bring the issue to a firm conclusion may be high. For Sunshine Yellow extraverted (Feeling) leaders, the ‘motivational’ desire to (over) share their own similar experience to bond with the speaker and put them at ease may also be high.
But remember, this meeting is not about you, it’s about them. They came to you to be heard, and as their leader, you have a responsibility to understand them as employees and as people. This means respecting their thoughts and giving them time and space (staying silent) to share what it feels like in their world without fear of judgement, reprimand or being talked over.
And remember, active listening is more than just listening with your ears. It’s a holistic approach where you are mindful about your use of questions (don't ask questions while they're talking - it feels strange at first but it works), your tone of voice (neutral), and even your body language (open), to reassure your employees that you are engaged, and that they may talk openly and honestly.
Listening actively and with empathy will help you to better understand a person’s situation from their perspective, rather than making assumptions or shaping it to your interpretation of what they are trying to tell you.
A leader who can activity listen, paves the way for breakthroughs
If you can resist jumping in with questions, uninvited solutions and suggestions, you may find that, because the other person actually felt heard, and because you held space for them, they shared more with you than usual.
This in itself can bring interpersonal breakthroughs and benefits way beyond the immediate issue at hand. You’ve now learned about how your employees thinks, and how this affects their decisions and interaction with other team members. Your ability to communicate and lead your people in the future may well improve as a result.
You might not ‘solve’ their immediate problem, but that’s okay. Even if they started the meeting by asking outright “What should I do about this?”, your job as a leader is to empower them to figure it out for themselves in a good way.
Their reason for coming may have been more about support, reassurance and (if they asked for it) perspective and ideas. Being able to voice their concerns out loud, without interruption or judgment, can bring people closer to solving or at least reframing the issue for themselves.
Reduce misunderstandings, increase respect and build a more productive workplace
Even the most impatient, time-pressed and talkative leaders we’ve met have admitted that these tweaks in their listening style are worth the time and thought.
It’s never easy to change our default communication approach, because we feel wired to respond in a certain way. But this is what Insights and the colour energies are all about: with awareness, we can choose to adjust how we respond to our people. For the sake of one’s growth as a leader, for team harmony and for shared team and business goals, it makes sense to hone this skill.
A few sensible adjustments to the way you listen to your employees could go a long way to supporting valued team -members, reducing misunderstandings and conflict, creating more respect, and with it a more productive workplace.
