A good leader has to be a good listener. People want to be heard, to be taken seriously, to be understood. The art of listening requires reassessment of his listening habits by the manager.
It is felt that many of us do not know how to listen well. Our biases enter into our listening habits. We may not like the way a speaker looks or his voice, and therefore, pay little attention to what he has to say.
Listening is a skill that can be developed. The following nine guidelines may improve an administrator’s listening skills.
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1. Physically show that you are ready to listen, face the speaker and show attention.
2. Ignore the speaker’s appearance or manner of delivery: Be watchful of what people have to say, rather than how they say it or look.
3. Watch your nonverbal communication: Expressions, gestures and body-language convey or betray the speaker’s sincerity and genuineness. Listen for under lying feelings.
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4. Keep your mind on what the speaker is saying: Do not allow yourself to become distracted.
5. Allow for your own bias: You may not like what the speaker has to say. But you cannot always agree with everyone.
6. Visualise the situation from the speaker’s point of view: Try to see how the speaker has formulated his or her perceptions.
7. Do not interrupt immediately if you hear an apparently wrong statement: As the speaker continues this may not be so.
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8. Evaluate the logic and credibility of what you hear: We can think four times faster than we can speak (or listen). Take advantage of this time-differential to simultaneously evaluate what the speaker is saying.
9. Do not give your last word: You need time to think about a problem from different angles before you communicate.