Leadership & Listening To Understand And Not To Respond

 

 

The Leadership Series

 

 

“Many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.”

― Lord Chesterfield

 

 

NOTE: This article is part 11 of a series on Leadership here at The Wealthy Ironworker

1. Foundational Leadership Truths
2. Leadership and The Three Areas of Your Life
3. Personal & Professional Development in a Leadership Context
4. Leadership, Management, and The Skilled Trades
5. The 4 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader
6. Leadership and The Task-Oriented Trades
7. Situational Leadership and the Skilled Trades
8. Leadership and The Art of Intentionality
   1. Skills Developed From The Art of Intentionality
9. Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
   1. Skills Developed From Emotional Intelligence
10. Leadership and Humility
    1. Skills Developed From Humility
11. Leadership and Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
    1. Skills Developed From Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
12. Skills Developed Overall in the Leadership Process
13. Mentored & Mentoring in Leadership
14. Influence Vs. Inspiration
15. Inspiration – Going Beyond Influence

 

***The above is subject to change as this series expands***

 

What is Listening to Understand And Not to Respond?

What exactly is listening to understand?

 

At the onset of this article, you may be surprised to discover there are numerous types of listening. For example, this website highlights seven different types, whereas this website details four main types of listening. Still, another says there are five, and TopResume says there are eight.

Does that seem confusing? To the new leader, it isn’t just that – it’s daunting, too.

For the intentional leader, however, they are prepared. They understand the importance of intentionality and, as a result, have consciously decided to be intentional about everything they do. From The Art of Intentionality, we readily understand the importance of emotional intelligence. That emotional intelligence allows for the potential for greater humility – and only through humility can you truly listen to understand and not to respond – which is the listening we are focusing on.

Why do I say that?

People aren’t as interested in listening as they are in responding – and that desire is powerful. People REALLY enjoy talking about themselves. You can see this play out in everyday conversations; as two people are talking, one hasn’t even finished before the other starts talking. It happens ALL THE TIME, and in a moment of reflection, I am positive you intuitively know this to be true.

Listening to understand, then, is more than just simply listening. It’s taking the time to REALLY listen. It’s putting aside our pride, utilizing humility, and trying to learn/understand.

With that in mind, let’s explore leadership and how listening to understand and not to respond is the pinnacle of this leadership model.

 

Utilizing This Type of Listening In The Skilled Trades

 

This type of listening is peak performance for a leader – but it’s incredibly difficult to obtain in the trades.

Why?

Because, for reasons unexplored, they (the trades) attract a certain type of individual. Indeed, that was the premise for this ENTIRE leadership series in the first place: many leadership models today seem geared towards the office and have significant relational undertones. Contrasting that to the heavily task-oriented, physically demanding, and pride-inducing trades, we can clearly note a difference.

That difference extends into who actually performs the work, too. Most people in the trades are proud, pride is the enemy of humility, and you need humility in abundance to be able to listen to understand.

What’s more, it’s just as difficult to utilize for the same reason. However, for the rare, developed, and intentional leader, the reward is worth the effort.

 

Listening to Understand & Associated Skills

 

It’s worth restating that this foundational leadership style is task-oriented, situational, and certainly authentic. For my part, it’s the only way to deal with those in the trades.

 

 

“Construction guys have the most powerful B.S. detectors in the world. They know when someone’s trying to get over on them.”

– Mark Breslin

 

 

We will, of course, take a look at the associated skills this last indispensable quality yields in the next post, but for now, a quick look at what they are is warranted.

I believe the skills that you, the leader, develop/obtain as you’re intentionally listening to understand and not to respond: Active Listening, Respect, Self-Awareness, Adaptability, and Curiosity.

The next article – Skilled Developed From Listening to Understand and Not to Respond – will explore these skills in more detail. For the remainder of this one, however, we will dig into more specifics with this pinnacle quality.

 

Listening to Understand – It Starts With The Leader

It ALL starts with you – the intentional leader

 

There’s a common theme with all of these qualities – each starts with the leader. The further along this leadership journey you go, the more important this becomes, too. More people may be inclined to be intentional – but how many will put in the hard work to listen to understand and not to respond? A LOT fewer.

The last quality we looked at – humility – was hard enough to obtain/display, but adding to that listening to understand? Whew, talk about compounding difficulty.

Even so, it won’t do for us, as leaders, to expect others to listen this way without ourselves doing it first. The leader sets the expectations, the pace, and overall climate, and others acclimate to them – not the other way around.

What this means, of course, is that if you truly want to be the best leader you can be – you need to work hard at it every step of the way. And know that if you ascend to the highest of qualities – listening to understand and not to respond – you will find yourself with fewer counterparts.

The outcome of this effort will be dramatic, and others WILL take notice. You’ll also come to understand how you are seen as a leader among leaders – and that’s to be expected, too. You’ve progressed further into pinnacle territory, and others will naturally see you in a different light. Simply attempting to exercise this quality will set you apart. And you can be sure that those who are truly intentional will also glean from you, whether you recognize it or not.

No matter what trajectory you end up on, one thing’s for certain: it starts and ends with YOU – the leader.

 

 

“Everything rises and falls on leadership.”

– John Maxwell

 

 

 

Listening to Understand and Awareness

Become aware of your strengths and weaknesses

 

Once you understand that it begins with you – the leader – you must build on humility and gauge how well you actually listen in the first place. While it’s true most people want to respond rather than simply listen to understand, people listen differently based on numerous variables, and their listening skills are all over the place.

There are a number of things you can use to understand your listening skills. You can take a self-assessment to identify where you are at, but that should not be the only metric used. You are, to be blunt, biased about yourself, and that will show itself in the results. Instead, you should also ask others around you for an honest opinion of how well you truly listen. Seek out someone who you work for, someone you work with, and someone who works for you (this is, of course, based on leadership at work – which I contend is the hardest type of leadership and is the foundation of this model). And, if you really want to go above and beyond, ask others who you don’t work around – like neighbors, friends, and especially family members. Most are not ready for honest feedback from the latter – but if you can, you will find it immensely beneficial – and not just for work. If you can improve/develop your listening skills, every area of your life will improve tremendously.

 

Self

A self-assessment of your own listening skills is helpful for a few reasons. First, it helps you become focused on the task at hand. You need to concentrate to understand where you are weak. Second, just by turning your attention to listening, you’ll improve to a degree. This should make sense. Third – and perhaps most important – you will have an assessment to compare with what others say. The degree to which you differ from what others say will be extremely important going forward.

 

Others

What others say about your listening skills matters more than most understand – or at least admit, anyhow. The reason why is perspective. We are prone to be more biased in our own assessment and to give ourselves high marks on listening, when in reality, we could be (and probably are) poor listeners.

To that end, take what others say seriously and use it as constructive feedback. Some of the things you should be looking for are:

• Do you cut people off before they are done speaking to respond?
• Do you look at the other person giving them undivided attention?
• Are you looking around and appear distracted?
• Do you appear frustrated having to listen to someone?
• Does your body language say, “I don’t want to listen to this person?”

These pieces of feedback – and others not listed – are worth their weight in gold IF you are truly intent on reaching this pinnacle of leadership.

 

Listening to Understand Planned

Making a plan is critical to success

 

With the feedback you’ve received – your own assessment and that of others – you can begin to act on it by formulating a plan. It’s possible to develop greater listening skills without a plan, but it isn’t probable. That’s how much of life works, actually.

What will your plan look like? That depends on the initial assessments you have, but here are a few things you might expect to have on it:

1. Think less of yourself – you are listening to someone else, after all. This may seem straightforward, but again, most people are really listening to respond. Break the mold: change it up by making the intentional choice to REALLY listen.
2. Ask follow-up/clarification questions. We will explore curiosity in the next article as one of the skills you’re actively developing with/from this quality, but asking good questions is a hallmark of intelligence and listening. Make it a point to include this in your plan.
3.  This will NOT develop overnight, so stay the course.  Anything worth doing is worth doing correctly, and this includes developing your listening skills, too. This whole endeavor is not a sprint – it’s a marathon. We are addicted to the here and now, instant gratification, and wanting what we want immediately. Developing a quality like listening to understand is hard enough; doing so while our insatiable desire to have it at once is a one-two combo can be unbearable. Keep the end goal in mind as you press on.
4.  Don’t let others and their inability to derail you. There is a lot in life that you cannot control, but the one thing you have absolute control over is how you respond. Do you quit at the first sign of difficulty or negativity? If that describes you, then you are not intentional nor want to truly develop this quality. You MUST have this step included in your plan because getting this far in the trades is T.O.U.G.H., and there are people who enjoy seeing someone fail.

 

The above isn’t exhaustive; indeed, your plan will likely have any number of variables to contend with. Don’t discount planning – it’s often the key to success and the only thing that keeps others from failing. As the old adage goes, “Failure to plan is planning to fail.”

 

Listening to Understand in Action

From concept to planning – now it’s time to put it into action

 

Now comes the hard part: acting on what you’ve planned. This is a lot harder than many people realize; we want to be important, and the desire to respond to others is almost overwhelming. Since you’ve planned out how you’re going to develop your listening, you’re already aware of this flaw that’s present in most people. You’re already ahead of the curve. You know you must be different. You understand just how important it is. You’ve followed this model this far – no turning back now.

As you interact with others and attempt to stick to your plan, you MUST be mindful of what others say and how you react. Maybe it’s giving yourself a 5-second rule once someone is done talking to ensure you don’t talk over them. It could be you develop a ‘question-asking’ muscle. Perhaps it’s understanding the need to give someone your full and undivided attention. Whatever it is, you can’t make any progress if you intend to do the same old same old.

Act on what you plan and stay the course.

That first step is a doozy – but take it, you must. If you procrastinate, you aren’t making any progress – so let’s get going, shall we?

 

Spend Time Reflecting on Listening to Understand

Taking time to reflect is too often dismissed

 

The more time you spend reflecting on something (anything, really), the greater the chance you’ll develop it further. And you MUST reflect on this pinnacle of leadership if you’re to develop/obtain it.  Ask yourself this: where would you be without intentional, concentrated, and reflective thinking? Thinking turns to action via practicing, and practicing, as they say, makes perfect.

The intentional leader will not leave this step out where this quality is concerned. Evaluate your situations, how well – or how poor – you handled your conversations/listening sessions, consider what you did right and what you could improve on, and ultimately what steps you need to take in order to become even better at listening to understand.

In our ‘I want it now’ world, this step is often overlooked, but I assure you it’s well worth the effort. Be sure to include this in your overall development.

 

Listening to Understand and Mentoring

We have a crisis when it comes to mentoring

 

If you’ve made it this far in the leadership journey, do NOT forget to mentor. From what I can tell, there is a mentoring crisis everywhere, but it’s particularly alarming in the skilled trades – and it’s exacerbated by the age gap. The skills you’ve learned on the job, the generational knowledge you’ve accrued, and the leadership you’ve intentionally developed – it’s absolutely crucial you intentionally mentor.

There is a common saying those in the leadership realm toss out: “Leaders aren’t born; they are made.”

Let’s assume that’s true for a moment. How do we develop them? What role does intentionality play – and how do we develop ANYONE without mentoring?

It’s simple: we don’t.

First, understand that YOU – the reader, the one seeking to develop your listening and leadership overall – have a massive part to play. Who else is going to do it? Who else will mentor the next generation of leaders? Someone else? Hardly; the entire industry has suffered from the idea of offshored training (it’s someone else’s responsibility – the worker, college, etc.), and what are the results of the decades-long experiment?

A significant decrease in not just mentors but also knowledge, skills, and – perhaps even more importantly – recruitment and retention.

If you’ve reached this point, you already KNOW how hard it was to develop humility – and now you’re expanding your listening skills? Whew – you, more than most, know just how HARD this road has been to travel, so why would you NOT mentor? Reaching down and pulling others up is a supreme mark of maturity; don’t dismiss it – embrace it.

This pinnacle of leadership is enormously difficult to develop, and this is doubly so in the trades. You’ll be surrounded by those who care for nothing but themselves, could not care less about developing themselves, much less others, and are likely to provide a level of opposition, if for no other reason than to humor themselves. Hopefully, you feel a responsibility deep within to help those who actually want to develop their listening.

Prioritize mentoring – and multiply leaders.

 

Listening to Understand – The Pinnacle of Leadership

From the pinnacle, you can see far and wide

 

If you’ve followed along in your leadership development to this point, I want to extend a hearty congratulations to you – this is the pinnacle of leadership. IF you can listen to understand, suppressing your innate desire to respond instead, you’ve developed and are utilizing humility. This means you possess robust emotional intelligence – and your intentionality is foundational. With each step throughout this process, difficulty has been encountered; obstacles, distractions, and stumbling blocks have been overcome, and you have become a leader among leaders. There is no skill you cannot learn, impediment you cannot deal with, or height you cannot rise to. You will not only become influential – you’ll be inspirational.

A word of caution, however. With each successive achievement – and certainly this pinnacle – there is a danger of becoming arrogant. This seems counterintuitive since you need humility in abundance to listen to understand, but it’s true, nonetheless.

Why?

Comparison. You will, at some point, become aware of how emotionally stunted many are in the trades – and you can easily fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. You may be aware of it already: the quick tempers, the outbursts of anger, shouting, threats, unwillingness to see other perspectives, rampant stubbornness – if you’ve been in the trades for any real length of time, you’ve encountered it, and know what I mean.

It will be a constant battle to keep your ego in check, especially around those who refuse to grow. Rather than see it as an annoyance, though, view it as yet another opportunity to grow. You may have reached the pinnacle, but that doesn’t mean you can’t descend – nor does it mean you cannot continue to grow. Perspective is what we need here.

 

Conclusion

 

Listening to understand and not to respond is exceptionally difficult to develop. Most people never embark on a leadership journey, and the few that do never make it past humility – much less this quality. By recognizing that it starts with the leader, you are able to understand your own ability – or lack thereof – and plan accordingly. Reflection should not be overlooked – in what you’ve done and where you need to go. You should recognize the importance of mentoring and be intentional about doing it. Lastly, remember to guard yourself from the temptation of arrogance when you compare yourself to others – and this will happen at some point.

No matter where you find yourself or the frustrations, obstacles, distractions, hurdles, and complications you face, NEVER GIVE UP.

 

 

NOTE: This article is part 11 of a series on Leadership here at The Wealthy Ironworker

1. Foundational Leadership Truths
2. Leadership and The Three Areas of Your Life
3. Personal & Professional Development in a Leadership Context
4. Leadership, Management, and The Skilled Trades
5. The 4 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader
6. Leadership and The Task-Oriented Trades
7. Situational Leadership and the Skilled Trades
8. Leadership and The Art of Intentionality
   1. Skills Developed From The Art of Intentionality
9. Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
   1. Skills Developed From Emotional Intelligence
10. Leadership and Humility
    1. Skills Developed From Humility
11. Leadership and Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
    1. Skills Developed From Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
12. Skills Developed Overall in the Leadership Process
13. Mentored & Mentoring in Leadership
14. Influence Vs. Inspiration
15. Inspiration – Going Beyond Influence

 

***The above is subject to change as this series expands***