Leadership Thought: So, You Think You Are A Good Listener!

Dear Friends

This past year I read a book by John Maxwell called the Leaders Greatest Return. It was one of the most rewarding leadership books I have read in many years, and I would like to provide a few insights from his chapter on becoming better listeners.

“The average person suffers from 3 delusions: (1) that he is a good driver, (2) that he has a good sense of humor, and (3) and that he is a good listener. Most people, however, including many leaders, are terrible listeners; they actually think talking is more important than listening,” writes Steven Sample, author of The Contrarians Guide to Leadership.

“What most people want is to be listen to, respected, and understood, and if this happens, they will be more motivated to listen to you and see your point of view (p 54).

“Listening leads to understanding people. The biggest communication challenge is that most of the time we do not listen to understand. We listen to prepare our reply. Effective listening requires more than hearing the words transmitted. It demands that you find meaning and understanding in what is being said. After all, meanings are not in words, but in people.  (Listening) is more than hearing words. It demands you find meaning and understanding in what is being said … People are far more likely to listen to us if we first listened to them” (pp. 55-56).

Listening is the best way to learn. Television host Larry King says “I remind myself every morning that nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So, if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening…When we fail to listen, we turn off much of our learning potential” (p.56) …”What others have to say to you is more important than what you have to say to them” (p. 57)

Listening engenders trust and connection. “Billy Graham said a suffering person does not need a lecture; he needs a listener…By listening you gain the trust of the people you work with” (p. 57). David Augsberger said, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable… “Listening draws people to you, which works much better than trying to push your leadership on them” (p. 58).

“You will never get the best out of people if you do not know who they are, where they want to go, what they care about, how they think and how they want to contribute. You only learn these things by listening. When you listen to people. it makes them feel like they are at the very heart of things, like partners, and not employees. They trust you because you care about them” (p. 59).

And in conclusion I might personally add to what our brother James has to say in his charter text on listening. “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). I know these words are so easy to say but yet so difficult to live, that is, unless we allow the Holy Spirit to take full control of our tongue.

Let our prayer be, “Lord Jesus, help me this day to open my heart to your Spirit and allow me to be more interested in hearing what others have to say than what I wish to say.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom