Lead with Mindful Listening
Last week I introduced the importance of mindful listening as an Apex Skill that supports the practice of Influential Leadership.
If you recall, mindful listening is acute and singular attention that engages the mind beyond what we see and hear.
Mindful listening is simply a smart way to behave because it empowers us to be better placed to understand clearly, to know more, to think deeper, to choose more wisely and to act more smartly.
There are ongoing occasions across our lives in which we can apply mindful listening—some are Leadership Moments.
One of them is loved by some and loathed by others ‘meeting’.
The manipulators and shirkers tend to love them.
The productive and bullied detest them.
In general, we often reckon meetings are a waste of time… but that is because we let them be.
It is up to you and me whether a meeting is productive or not, and the place to start is to establish mindful listening as a culture of how we lead and manage meetings.
Note. There are aspects to meetings that fall within a management context, and others, for example being a mindful listener, which enjoy a leadership element. When we lead a meeting it becomes an Apex Skill.
Those of you who have completed the Alpha Programme will know that these two functions (skillsets) are not the same, neither are they at war with each other. They complement each other if used in the proper ways.
The type of meeting I have in mind is:
- a formal occasion,
- when two or more people,
- come together,
- in person or virtually,
- to collectively discuss a matter,
- with the purpose to:
- identify an opportunity,
- resolve a matter,
- share and develop an idea,
- make a decision,
- build consensus,
- provide feedback…
Meetings are a fantastic social construct in which humans engage with each other for productive reasons.
Meetings happen in every human domain—families, communities, schools, workspaces, teams, governments—everywhere.
I am sure that we can trace meetings back to Human #1 and Human #2 squatting together considering how to do something better…
All too often meetings tend to be a management affair in which legacy-style top-down attitudes prevail.
The best way to describe such events is that they tend to be characterised by the ‘boss’ (the head honcho, the one at the head of the table, the only smart person) telling the attendees something… delegating, dressing down, demanding.
If the others present are treated as attendees rather than participants, there is a high probability that they will simply agree with the ‘boss’. He or she has spoken, there is no room for another view.
The productive way to use meetings is to imagine and practice them as events that are governed by mindful listening, especially if you are the person directing the meeting, but for all meeting participants.
If the person who is supposed to direct the meeting ‘bosses it’, they then disrespect the principle of mindful listening and you as a participant must find ways to influence them to do it differently. Sell them the fact that there are people around the table that can contribute to the meeting and to her/his benefit, and the collective benefit.
Mindful listening is equivalent to the best research from around the table.
If the ‘boss’ has employed smart people (let us assume they would do that), surely, he/she would seek their smart contributions.
A ‘boss’ who reckons they have a monopoly on all questions and answers is always, yes, always going to end up with a sub-optimum environment and outcomes.
There is incontrovertible scientific evidence that in general, and over the longer term, a collective of smart, independent and diverse thinking people always beats the individual’s position.[i]
Below is a basket of illustrative traits and benefits we obtain when we practice mindful listening, an Apex Skill for Influential Leaders.
When we apply mindful listening, we:
- Act smarter (for better outcomes)
- Attest to being open-minded (encouraging contributions)
- Become more interesting (thus more engaged)
- Become wiser (going beyond technical skills)
- Develop presence (a sense of being)
- Develop thought processes (thinking things through)
- Display attentiveness (focus)
- Enrich our and other’s lives (learning, development, knowledge, wisdom, sharing)
- Gain knowledge (the basis of development)
- Gather new ideas (innovation, opportunity)
- Improve social adeptness (respecting differences and complexity)
- Learn more (new things…)
- Make better informed decisions (multiple data points)
- Obtain understanding (goes beyond the facts)
- Reflect thoughtfulness (less speed more haste)
- Respect others (encourages participation)
- Respect ourselves (self-awareness)
- Show empathy (walk in another’s shoes)
- Show restraint (don’t just because you can).
Can there be a sound argument not to be a mindful listener?
No.
I have not yet come across one.
Have you?
Treat every meeting, each social engagement, as a Leadership Moment to apply mindful listening. When you do, I bet you will be able to add a 20th benefit to the above list!
If you have not been on the Alpha Programme journey yet, come along, become the best meeting director ever, or the most demanding collaborator a dictatorial ‘boss’ ever had!
Drop me a mail, give me a call, let’s chat about activating Apex Skills in your world.
Have a productive Leadership week!
Regards,
Colin @ Karoo
We Activate Apex Skills!
Leadership Weekly Note: 2224.270524
e: colind@karoo.world
Follow The Karoo Influential Leadership on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KarooInfluentialLeadership
[i] Surowiecki, J. 2004. The Wisdom of Crowds. Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Anchor.
