Why listening makes you a better leader and increases the self-confidence our your colleagues, empowers your teams?

Let us imagine that someone is coming to us with a problem.

And we are listening.

What may happen with us is to check in our database/thoughts (values, beliefs, experiences..) whether we had a similar problem as she and what were the consequences of that issue in our case. Everything that she says is internally interpreted, evaluated by us.

With this information, we get very much involved in the conversation, and we sympathize with her.

This moment can be a good sign for not listening. Yes, this is not listening“; it is the start of dealing with yourself, with our thoughts.  If the problem is not fitting into our „list“ of „advice“ we get irritated. The irritation comes from fear, and we feel out of control.

What is out of control?

So, what to do not to fall into the trap of „being out of control“?

  1. Create an intention to be curious.
  2. Be courageous to explore new territories.
  3. and, „see“ that you are at no time out of control, since there is NO control at all

What do we do when we listen?

  1. We listen what she says,
  2. We listen to the tone of what she says,
  3. We listen to our heart, body what it means, without judging

We do this by letting go of the desire to stabilize, control the life, which is continuously changing.

This way of listening supports your colleague. She sees the problem with clarity, which gives her more confidence to solve it. She gains more trust towards you as a leader.

You as a leader have proven again your trust to your colleague, that she can solve problems and by listening you have learned a lot more about yourself as a leader.

You have extended your new areas to discover.

„Great leader has great teams“ is no more an illusion once your intention is stronger than your fear.