“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” – Dalai Lama XIV

Rab Mulholland, Principal Consultant, Step5, discusses the need to actively listen when engaging employees

A number of years ago, I modified my approach to leading business change programmes, which has been nothing short of transformative. It has helped me free up my time to focus on the c-suite big stuff, develop a high performing and motivated customer-centric team, and it has substantially improved delivery performance for my clients.

Two life events were the catalyst for this change. First, I became CIO for an enterprise going through a complex and troubled business transformation programme with some 70,000-users across 300 multi-tenant, multi-national sites. And I became a Samaritan.

My leadership approach had been the ‘Serve to Lead’ philosophy I was trained in at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst – the aim and unifying actions being decided by the leader and given to the team to enact. Becoming a Samaritan changed my life when I fostered the emotional awareness and listening skills I needed as a volunteer and, from that, developed a new management style to build on my Sandhurst leadership grounding.

This so-called listening leadership approach is my adaptation of the six principles on the Samaritans’ ‘Listening Wheel ’ – the model the charity uses to train its volunteers in the art of active listening.

As the leader, you are often seen as the ‘answers person’. However, my experience has shown me that encouraging employees to look to themselves for the answers is much more effective. It helps them develop professionally, contribute creatively, feel empowered and take ownership of their responsibilities. And it benefits you, as the leader, and the wider business, too.

Helping your employees to become problem solvers requires less talking and more listening – really listening. As Stephen R. Covey puts it in his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ‘Listen to Lead’ is based on actively listening to understand what is going on, rather than passively listening to what is being said, as outlined in the following steps:

1. Ask open questions

To get to the heart of an issue an employee may be having with a project, ask questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. This encourages people to think about the problem in depth, to open up and explain the problem in their own words. A good question to ask might be, “What are your thoughts on the scale and scope of this change programme?”

2. Summarise

By summarising what you think has been said, you demonstrate that you are really (actively) listening, you are focussed on the employee and their problem, and you can both confirm a joint understanding; “OK, so what I’m hearing is that this is unlike any other change project you’ve delivered before?”

3. Provide short words of encouragement

A simple, “Go on, please; tell me more,” provides essential encouragement and support, and gives people the time and space to give a much richer picture of the problem.

4. Reflect

Repeating some of the key points an employee has made can help get to the crux of their problem. They may not have realised that these things were so important to them, and you are being supportive of their position; “You mentioned that it was the complexity of the project that makes it feel unlike anything you have delivered before?”

5. Clarify

Using clarifying questions can help you understand specific points the employee may have glossed over, in order to gain a common understanding; “Can you tell me more about what you mean when you say that this looks more like a programme?”

6. React

Often the employee is looking for empathy. Reacting to their account of the problem demonstrates that you understand their perspective and that their opinion matters; “I agree, it does sound very complex and we should approach it as a programme. What are your thoughts on how we could do that?”

Adding in more ‘open questions’ helps to further explore their thoughts to find a solution. The key point here is that it is all from their point of view. By actively listening, you are helping them clarify their thinking and work out their own problem.

So what?

When I first took up the CIO role, team morale was at an all-time low, I was asked to solve the most minor of problems and our customers were routinely unhappy.

However, over time, by applying ‘Listen to Lead’, my team felt listened to, they grew in confidence and they developed their own solutions to problems. Crucially, their outputs improved measurably.

I found that I had more time to do the job I was supposed to be doing – i.e., the strategic thinking and decision-making stuff. And the team had more time to do their job – delivering the solution articulated in their own words, without trying to interpret what I had said, meant or wanted, and without the many time-consuming cycles of coming back for guidance and clarification.

We became a highly motivated team as everyone felt that their opinions and thoughts mattered. The team became self-policing – sorting problems out between them and knowing that they could come back to me for support and decisions when required.

Perhaps most importantly, we improved delivery performance for our clients, becoming an ‘active’ team that applies a customer-centric approach; proactive most of the time then highly reactive and flexible when we need to be.