Listening is a crucial competency in the modern world, given the amount of sound information one needs to process for various needs, from informed decision-making to meaningful relationships. The leadership role suggests that one individual interacts with many different people, both delivering information to them and receiving messages from them. Therefore, it is essential that a leader puts effort into developing listening competency through various exercises. From the Chapter “Listening like a leader” and a TED Talk by Julian Treasure, one can learn how to become a better listener. Mainly, it is crucial to be aware of such listener types as people-centered, action-centered, content-centered, and time-centered, and practice the exercises of quietness, mixer, savoring, filters change, and RASA to master listening competency.
The type of listener defines what a person will pay the most attention to; therefore, a speaker can change the form of their message to be understood more efficiently. If a speaker deals with a content-centered type, it is critical to provide necessary explanations and pay attention to facts. The mentioned TED Talk appears as a lecture targeting mainly content-centered listeners because Julian Treasure mentioned various facts and figures and listed some bullet points. For listeners with an action-centered style, a speaker should organize their message well and reduce the number of unnecessary details. For people-centered listeners, it is essential that a speaker appears open and demonstrates their emotions, and supports their logical points with emotional motivation. When one deals with time-centered listeners, it is crucial to stick to the topic and deliver information succinctly. Eventually, knowing the listening styles of other people can help adapt the delivery so that it is efficient and is perceived well.
Hence, one can benefit from doing specific exercises aimed at improving one’s listening skills. Treasure suggests that a few minutes of silence every day can help refresh one’s listening receptors and become more comprehensive towards the new information one receives. It might be advantageous for leaders to spend some time in silence before important meetings and report presentations. Additionally, such exercise as the mixer aims at distinguishing different channels of sound and may help develop the capability to navigate in noisy environments. Another practice, savoring, suggests enjoying the mundane sounds. One can practice savoring in an office since usually there are many routine sounds in the workplace.
One of the essential exercises for a leader refers to changing positions. Treasure mentioned that listening goes through various filters of attitudes, beliefs, and expectations. Therefore, one should pay attention to the position they listen from and willingly change it. For instance, it may be beneficial to change the criticizing position to the supportive one and see if there are any good points in the heard message. Furthermore, the RASA exercise appears vital for leaders because it stands for Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, and Ask and can be helpful in preparing feedback. Accordingly, when providing feedback, especially negative one, it is beneficial when a leader uses four-component I-statements. Speaking from a personal point of view helps avoid hurting another person’s feelings and increases the chances that a recipient will empathize with the leader and understand the issue.
Overall, it appears that becoming an efficient speaker starts with developing listening competency. By improving listening skills, one can navigate information more easily and change the delivery of the message in a way to be understood by various audiences. For a leader, the improvement of listening competency is essential because their major part of work relies on communicative interactions with different individuals and teams.