Listening has been described by Frances Hesselbein as an effective way of learning what others value. We listen to our customers, we listen to our employees and we listen to our shareholders. We listen to our spouse, we listen to our loved ones and we listen to our friends. Many people say that they do not know what to say in a conversation. Well, just listen. Most people just want someone to listen to them. You be that listening leader and your organisation, your team and your family will benefit.

Benefits of Effective Listening

1. Shows that you care
2. Helps you find out what others need or want.
3. Builds rapport and mutual respect between people.
4. Rewards you with increased customer confidence which easily translates to return business.
5. Increases participation employees.
6. It makes you pleasant to be around

Listening takes on a bigger significance when leaders leave their offices to meet employees on the shop floor. In such instances, listening conveys a feeling of inclusion, a sense of contribution and inclusion in the decision making process. It is also worth noting that the content of the discussion, that is what is being talked about, is not so important when it is the boss who doing the listening.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care ~ John Maxwell

The listening leader must exhibit a genuine concern for the subordinate or the listening and chatting may be perceived as a trick.

In small organisations, the close proximity of the leader to the front line means that listening and chatting must be an integral part of the work. There has to be a deliberate effort to incorporate non work related talk into conversations. I had someone once tell me that my work environment was too quiet. Social chatter needs to be a part of the work culture, to deliberately create the unofficial communications channel where issues and concerns are made. And the leader(s) must be a part of this.

6 Keys to Effective Listening

1. Show Genuine Concern.

You will have to show an interest in the discussion. You facial expression and body language be congruent and express you interest in the topic. You have to stop all other activity and focus on the person talking.

2. Listen with the Intention to Understand. 

One of the most common things people do when another person is talking is to begin rehearsing their own contribution. Steven Covey calls this Empathic Listening. You are listening to get the other persons frame of reference see the world from that persons point of view.

3. Suspend Judgement

It is so easy to think that we know where the story is going to end and as such we begin to interject with our own conclusions based on our point of view and experiences. This will not help your listening. You need to listen to the whole story before making up your mind as to what is being conveyed. This takes some patience and practice but I very rewarding.

4. Summarise What You Have Heard.

There is a need to reassure the person speaking that you are listening. One of the ways to do this is to summarise what you have heard when the speaker has major pauses. This must be done with great care so that it is not perceived as interruptions. Use your own words to express what you have heard. This also gives the person speaking an opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings.

5. Ask Questions.

Asking questions is an important part of the listening process. It shows the speaker that you are listening and interested in the discussion. It also allows you an opportunity to clarify points that you have not understood.

6. Don’t Interrupt.

This can be a difficult one especially if you find yourself with someone who likes to talk. If you have limited time, state that clearly at the beginning of the conversation and when you have to leave, find a pause in the conversation and state your intention to end the conversation at that point.

Are you a good listener? If so leave a comment.

Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving ~ Jesse Jackson

Inspirational Leadership

Leadership is influence. As the leader your words and action will undoubtably have some influence over your followers. You inspire action in others.

Now here’s the question, who or what inspires you to stand out and take your place as a leader? Is there anyone in your world who stand out as role model for the type of leader you aspire to be? There is a global cry for inspired leaders to stand up and take their stand. Leadership role models are needed at all levels in government, business and in not for profits.

About Inspirational Leadership

1. Intuition

Inspirational leaders are intuitive and learn to trust their instincts. This is not to say that guesswork or the roll of the dice is the hall mark of their leadership. But that they subject their hunch or gut feeling to other confirmatory tests in making the right calls or decisions. This kind of sets you apart because you arrive at a different and unique conclusion based on the facts presented.

2. Positive attitude

Another characteristic of inspired leaders is their positive attitude. Everyone wants to be around a person with a positive attitude. So a positive attitude is like a magnet that attracts people towards you. Likewise a negative attitude will drive positive people away from you. So take negativity out of your life. Steer clear of those who drag other people down because they will be a dragging force in your life.

3. Aptitude

Your skills, ability and proficiency for the tasks ahead will project your personal disposition and capacity to influence more people, provide direction and solve problems in the workplace. There is no need to know everything about your business or industry. You only need to have a handle on the information and knowledge that gives you an edge over others.

4. Personal Character

Your personal character, temperament, reputation, integrity and humility will enhance whatever leadership skills you have or have developed.

5. Experience

The stories that people hear of your experience and tenacity can make the inspirational leader stand out larger than life. Experience build capacity and confidence

The real essence of inspirational leadership is to know to deploy your leadership skills, knowledge and experience in ways that would build others up. The highpoint of inspirational leadership is therefore continuos knowledge transfer to others around you and supporting you. This is carried out through your coaching, mentoring and other people developing activities that you carry out.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

#6. Visionary

The vision of the leader sets the tone and provides a sense of direction for the organisation. You the leader must have the ability to galvanise your team effort behind the vision and thus propel your organisation into the future you have envisaged.

Many will look up to your leadership for direction in their own personal lives. When people commit to a vision, they commit to a person. That is you the visionary. They look to hear what you have to say, how you say it and what you do after you have said it.

Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela envisaged a world that was completely different from  the one they lived in. They inspired their followers to take action at great cost to make that vision a reality.

Take a look into the future. What do you see? The further in the future you can see, the better the quality of your decisions today that brings you closer to the future you envisage.

#7. Goals

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. ~ Tony Robbins

Goals are like magnets that draw out the potential for achieving great things that can lie dormant inside of you. Your goals are the markers on your road to success.

You must have goals. They may be as simple as a list of things you want to achieve. They must be realistic and they must make you draw from the strength you did not know you have.

If you set out to achieve nothing, that is precise what will happen. You will achieve nothing. If you have your goals written out, you have a plan of action for achieving these goals and you have the discipline to follow your plan, then you are on your way to being a successful entrepreneur.

#8. Strategy

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what non can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. ~ Sun Tzu

Strategy deals with the long term direction. Is the lack of strategic leadership a contributory factor to why small businesses stop growing? One thing is for sure, growth is not automatic. You need a strategy and a plan for your’s and your organisations growth.

The only way to shake of the ‘small’ label attached to you and your organisation is to grow, grow and grow. How do you plan to grow?

You take a position in relation to the future opportunities and threats you and your organisation will face. You then commit resources today to position yourself to whether the storm or take advantage of the opportunities that will present itself.

#9. Team

I need to give power to other people, allowing them the creativity and freedom to explore new ideas and ways of thinking. ~ Jill Cleveland

Leadership is a team effort not a solo expedition. Leaders know they cannot do it alone. You the leader must therefore develop the ability to get the best out of others.

The foundation of your team effort is the building of trust. With trust comes the ability to engage in real dialogue around issues. Everyone has to pull his or her weight. This requires commitment to the success of the team or the achievement of vision.

You the leader must inspire your team to rise to heights far beyond the sum of their individual efforts. To quote a chinese proverb:

If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for twenty ears, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men

#10. Emotional Intelligence

Leaders lead people and not organisations. Humans are emotional beings. We think with our head but we act with our heart. Your emotions and the emotions of the people you lead matter.

Emotional Intelligence is your ability to recognise and understand emotions in yourself and others and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behaviour and relationships. Saying the right thing at the wrong time can lose you a client. Resist the urge to say it as it is.

You inability to control your bouts of anger will get you passed over for the promotion that you have worked hard for.

Getting ahead in life requires more than a high intelligence quotient IQ score. You also have to have a high EQ or emotional quotient.

How do you inspire your Team? 

The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious~ John Scully

#1. Vision

A vision is not just a picture of what could be. It is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.

Your vision for your life and for your business is the future desired outcome you want. It need not be related to your present reality because you have in you the ability to create something from nothing.

My question is not do you have a vision? Rather I would ask do you know where you are going with your life, your business or your finances. If you continued on the same road doing the same things, you are bound to get the same results.

Take a moment to picture where you will be in five years, ten years and fifty years? If you don’t like what you see, then take some time to create a new future for yourself, your family and your business.

#2. Dreams.

All dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them~ Walt Disney

The real power of your dreams is in your ability to articulate it and share it with someone. Finding the right words to represent what you see in your dreams can be difficult.  But you must share it with someone. This helps you to move it from your head to your mouth and back through your ears as you are reenergised by what you hear.

If you cannot find the right words, use whatever words come to mind. Don’t let your dream die in you. In the words on an unknown author, many dreams die because they are kept within… Dreams are opportunities waiting to happen.

Take a few minutes today and dream about the future of this Planet.

#3. Pleasant To Be Around

Peoples personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld.

Are you pleasant to be around? Do people enjoy your company?  This can be a blind spot for you. You just may be scoring yourself more points on the likability scale than you should.

People are more interested in themselves than in you. So if you are that person who is interested in others, you will immediately move up their likability scale.

Developing an interest in others will mean that you have to take time to ask the right questions and to listen to understand and to know what is it that others care about.

#4. Understanding People

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity ~ Dale Carnegie

Human beings are the pride of Gods creation and they defy logic, do stupid things and can be cruel to one another. But deep down when all the bravado is gone, they are fun to be around.

My question to you is, do you understand people? If your answer yes, then good for you. If your answer is no, you are not alone. To achieve great things in life, you will need people either as partners, customers or investors.

You cannot get away from people so don’t try and lock yourself up on a deserted island. It’s no fun. Accept the fact that there will always be people to share this world with you. Don’t try and change them, just make the effort to understand them and then get on with doing life with people.

#5. Persevere

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up ~ Thomas A. Edison

Many in your team will be looking up to you to lead by example. When you decide on a course of action, how soon do you change your mind.

I used to have the habit of working on more than one project at a time. To some people, this shows a lack of focus. To others this is multitasking.

The weakness of this multi-project strategy is that if I hit an obstacle in one or if it is taking too long to achieve the desired result, I have a tendency of abandoning the difficult one and continuing with the not so difficult one. I am now learning to persevere and see my ideas through to a logical conclusion. Using the Lean Startup methodology, you can come up with realistic points at which you decide to persevere or pivot.

How about you? Do you persevere in the face of obstacles and difficulties.

Have you ever had a boss who is so fussy about time? He will tell you off for being five minutes late for meetings and would abruptly end the conversation once the allotted time for the meeting is over.

Have you got friends or family who despite your pressuring them for the specific time they will arrive at your house will not commit themselves to anything other than to say, ‘see you on Saturday night’?

We all perceive and prioritise time differently. Our time sense can be poles apart and yet we have to get along well with one another.

Today I will be talking about two different ways in which people are known to see time and organise their schedule.  I will use two different words to represent these and I will tell you why you need to be aware of your time sense.

So what are the two ways in which people perceive time?

1. Monochronic – Time as a line sequential of events 

• These people see time as being divided into fixed elements such as seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and so on. To them these components of time can be organised, scheduled and manipulated to achieve desired results. You may begin to think that most people probably wear a wrist watch or have some form of time piece that is divided into seconds, minutes and hours. While that may be true, not all of us see our days as being made up of individual seconds, minutes or hours.

• The monochron will plan his or her day in detail and stick religiously to this plan.
• Time commitments are taken very seriously by such persons and if given an appointment for 1o’clock, he or she will get there at least five minutes early. They emphasise promptness.

• The monochron will only do one thing at a time, will concentrate on that job and will not take kindly to any interruptions.

2. Polychronic – Do many things at a time and involve people

• Polychrons prefer to keep their time unstructured and will not plan their day in detail. This means that they change plans easily and often.

• The polychronic person takes delight in doing more than one thing at a time and will move around freely from one activity to another. They are highly relational and as such are committed to people. They welcome interruptions and will base promptness on relationships.

• The polychron will not necessarily break up a conversation because of an up coming appointment. For them a time commitment is an objective to be achieved if possible.

• Polychrons can and do meet deadlines, but they do so in their own way without imposing on themselves or allow someone to impose on them detailed plans and schedules.

How can this help you?

Why do you need to know this or of what importance is this to you?

We live in a world made up of people and knowing your time sense can help you gain a bit more insight about yourself. Being aware that other people can and do place greater or less emphasis on time and time commitments will reduce your stress level and improve your relationship with others.

I will give you three examples:

In the home.

My wife is an example of a polychron. If we are planned to go out for a meal say on Saturday night. For her Saturday night is good enough as the time because she has so many things she wants to do before going out. For me saturday night is not good enough. I want a bit more detail say 7.30, 8 o’clock. I also have a few tasks I want to accomplish but I would rather schedule it and commit myself to a particular time. I do not get stressed over this anymore.

At work

You may have a boss who is so fussy about time and will tell you off for being 5 minutes late for an appointment and will abruptly end the meeting once the allotted 15 minutes is up. For this monochronic boss, time is exact and he or she see’s your being late as both indifferent and disrespectful. You on the other hand find his abrupt end to the meeting rude and disrespectful. You can reduce the conflict in the work place by making an effort to get to appointments on time and your boss can find more tactful ways to bring the meeting to an end once the time is up.

Personal and career development

To achieve your long term goals, you will more often need to break it down into smaller shorter term goals. You may decide to view your goals as sequential and work on one at a time, or you can multitask working on many projects at the same time. Knowing the different options helps you feel a lot more comfortable with yourself.

Are you a monochron or a polychron?

If you live your life by schedules and appointments and have planned your day to the minute and second, be aware that others may not. Tactfully end conversations and proceed to your next appointment. Remember that the colleague at work who is always late for meetings may not be lazy and disrespectful. His time sense may simply be different from yours.

On the other hand if you are always late for appointments and consider your boss rude for cutting you off in the middle of a conversation, it will be helpful to others for you remember that some people do take their time commitments very serious. If you have been allocated time to say something, avoid the bell of shame and say it all on time.

I leave you with this quote from Carl Sandburg,

Time is the coin of your life. Its the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest other people spend it for you

How do you see time?