Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
Does Effective Leadership Depend on Effective Listening?
In this insightful episode of The Leadership Detectives, Albert and Neil unpack the importance of listening to teams - and how effective listening can lead to magic happening in any organisation.
Find Neil online at: https://neilthubron.com
Find Albert on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-e-joseph
Welcome to the Leadership Detectives with Albert Joseph and Neil Fabron. This is the go-to podcast for uncovering clues about great leadership. If you are a leader today or an aspiring leader, this podcast is a must for you. On this episode of The Leadership Detectives, we focused on one of the key skills of leadership that needs to be developed by all great leaders, which is the skill of listening and being a really good listener. So we hope you enjoy the journey that we take you on through understanding why, what, and how listening is so important to great leadership. Welcome to another episode of The Leadership Detectives, where we're hunting for clues on great leadership. Albert, good to see you. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_01:Good to see you. Really well, really well, actually. I don't think I'm as well as you though. I'm sitting here in my study in in uh in Surrey, Camberley, and you look like you've got a much better backdrop than me.
SPEAKER_02:That's looking pretty good. I'm down on the boat in uh Limington at the moment. I'm down here. I'm actually I'm not actually sailing, I'm just studying for a couple of days. I've got an exam coming up, and this is a great location just to come and study. And the the rain has only just cleared, actually. So I thought it'd be a good opportunity to sit outside to do this recording.
SPEAKER_01:Guys, this is what it's like when you're successful, right? If you want to study, you can go sit in the kitchen, or you can go sit in the garden, or you can go down to your boat, right?
SPEAKER_02:And um how have you been anyway? Because we haven't recorded one for a little while. So, how's things going?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we both got a lot of stuff going on, haven't we? We've got a hell of a lot of stuff going on, both you know, business and social and everything, but it doesn't stop us getting onto things like LinkedIn and social platforms and all that. Yeah, one of the things that I saw when I was up on LinkedIn, we'll all love Simon Sinek, right? And one of the things we saw up there, he put a really good post up to do with listening. And I suddenly thought, you know what? We've touched on it because we've touched on communication, but this is a completely different piece of that, right? And I thought, is there something here? I pinged out to Neil and he went, Yep, love that, great idea. I think we've got strong views on that. So I think that's what we're gonna spend the time on today, right, Neil?
SPEAKER_02:So if I just clarify, so so what you'd like to talk about today, then, is listening.
SPEAKER_01:Correct, correct. And and I think asking questions back about what someone has said is always useful because it either endorses what you heard or it's because you didn't hear it and you're kind of checking. Oh shoot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's and it's it's the reason I was so keen on it is because uh when you look around leaders in the public eye, when you look around leaders in uh that you work with, you hear these the term he's a good listener, she's a good listener. Yeah, and what why is that so important to individuals? And what I've found with a lot of the coaching I'm doing, a lot of the leaders I work with, is that when employees are listened to, when their input is sought, magic happens. Magic happens in the organization, and magic happens between the individuals and the motivation of the individuals and so on. So it is a key skill for human beings, but it's a really important skill for uh for leaders to have, practice, and be aware of.
SPEAKER_01:I think I think it's also a I don't know, well, we probably all see this, right? You can build your reputation on this as well. It's gonna be so easy to have a reputation as someone who doesn't listen, and it's much harder to build a reputation of somebody who does. But when you do, it gets self-endorsing and people share that and so on. And that's important, right? Your reputation as a leader is really important. Are you approachable? Do you listen? And do you do anything with what you've heard?
SPEAKER_02:I'm just thinking, you never hear someone say they're a really good speaker, you know, or they they they talk a lot, you know, they're they're really good at talking a lot. That's not a quality that people uh seek, is it? It's uh I don't know. Unfortunately, I think I've heard that about people I know about so so what what if what have you uncovered as to why it's important then? Why why do you think it's important?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, I did a little bit of research actually, and I found something on on a Forbes report, right? And there's some there's there's just four bullets here that I'm gonna just call out, and I think we should kind of maybe delve into that a little bit more. One of them that I found was there's a belief that 85% of what we know we've learned through listening. Okay. So maybe we read things, maybe we see things, but listening seems to be one of our greatest inputs to the things that we've learned. Humans generally listen at a 25% comprehension rate. Now, that to me is really alarming, because that says we're not taking in everything we we're listening to.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think actually, um, I mean, Anna would say that my comprehension rate of things is a lot worse than that. But uh, but that's an interesting point, right? If if we're only taking in 25. So when an employee sits down with you as a leader, or when one of your team sits down with you, whatever they're saying, you're only taking 25% of it in. That is a bit shocking, actually.
SPEAKER_01:And is it the right 25%?
SPEAKER_02:Well, or have you filtered it out because your filters have been applied and you filtered out the 25%. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, all right, but so there's another one which here a typical business day. How do we spend our time? 45% listening, 30% talking, 16% reading, and 9% writing. And yet, when we look at our employees, we talk to them about how well they wrote a proposal, or how well they did a presentation, or how they went and spoke to a client.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. How much do we talk to them about how much they listened? Right? When somebody's come back from a client situation, you sit down and just find out what they've learned, right? They want to come back and tell you everything they told them, right? I just don't think we we spend enough focus on that because one of the the last bullet I'll call out here, Neil, is whether it's right or wrong, what this Forbes report said was less than two percent of professionals have had any formal education on how to improve their listening skills or techniques. Yeah, less than two percent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I believe that. I mean, I've because um if you said to someone you're going, I want to send you on a listening course, that kind of sends a message that says maybe you're not a good listener, but but also they go, Well, yeah, what am I gonna do on a listening course? Yeah, and I remember many, many years ago, I did a a course and we did active listening, and we did listening. We were it was a whole day on how to listen. It was a coaching course on how to listen, and that included things like just sitting there and not saying anything, just sitting and looking at the person opposite you and just listening to what they're saying, not saying anything, not responding, maybe the odd nod here and there, or the other uh-huh. But it was just a question of you just sit and listen to what that person says. And you know what I learned in that situation? You absorb so much. Yeah, when you sit and actively listen, you really do absorb a huge amount of information.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I I think this is one of those skills which I think is, given the areas that you and I spend our time on, I think it's one of these areas which is as useful to leaders as it is to sales, right? As leaders, listening to what your people are saying to you, I mean, sitting down to them one-to-one, listening what they're saying to you when you're walking around and talking to them, listening what they're saying when you pick things up, right? Listening doesn't mean right, let's do listening now, right? Come, let's sit down and let me listen to you. No, listening is picking things up, listening and engaging in that. But as a salesperson, you know, when we teach about sales, we teach about making sure you've understood what the client wants, not what you're trying to sell them, right? And it's exactly the same thing, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and actually, you know, um very few salespeople are really good listeners because they're they're the you know, the danger is you listen, and what you're doing when you're listening is thinking about the next question you're gonna ask or the next point you want to make. So you're not actually listening to find out, you're listening to make a point, and and that's the same with with people or with customers, you know, and and the voice of the customer, you hear that, you know. The voice, if you aren't listening, how can you hear the voice of the customer? Yeah, employees say their voice needs to be heard, you know, we want our voice to be heard. So you can only do that if you are listening.
SPEAKER_01:Well, let's think of a good distinction there, then, right? As a salesperson, you've come there with an agenda, probably. You probably come there with an agenda. As a leader, when somebody wants to talk to you, you don't need to have an agenda, you need to hear what they want to tell you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then you want to help them with that by first of all making sure you've heard it. So, as you did right at the start, right? Just repeating it back to confirm that you did hear the same thing, and then do something with it.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and what's the advantage then? What's the advantage to leaders of listening? Because it all sounds great, but actually, we could just get on with the business by telling people what to do.
SPEAKER_01:So it comes back to what's a leader, what's the leader's job, right? And and and how much have we talked about the leader's job is about making sure they're getting the best out of their team, but also creating a world for their people that they enjoy working in, that they enjoy developing in, right? It's not just about hitting the metrics, right? So you've got to come right back to what do you think leadership is and why are you a leader?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so so if you're if you're listening to your employees, what are you gonna get from it? And I guess you're gonna get more insight. You know, you're gonna you're gonna have a better understanding of the problem or of the solution. You're gonna have more brains on it, you're gonna have more input to it. Um what other benefits might there be of listening?
SPEAKER_01:Well, let's just dive a little bit into what you've just said there, right? Imagine if you really want to know what's going on in your team and how you can make it better for them and deliver better results, you've got to ask. So, how many of our audience listening to this have sat down with their team with a pad and a pen or an iPad or whatever you want to do it on, right? With nothing written down and asked them, tell me what's going on, tell me how we can do better, tell me how we can make life better for you working in this company, yeah, tell me how we can deliver better results. Who's done that?
SPEAKER_02:So, so you're talking about um basically actively going out to listen. And and that's a really important point because I hear regularly with the uh leaders I work with, you know, I've got an open door, my employees come and talk to me anytime, and I'm ready to listen. But actually, how many people want to walk through the door? And are you ready to listen? Whenever they walk through the door, of course you're not. You know, you'll be on a phone call, you'll be in the middle of an email, you'll be in the middle of a video conference, you know, you you're never gonna be a hundred percent ready to listen unless you stop all of that. But actually, one of the best ways, what you've just described, is actually make time for listening, go out and actively seek input and listen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, I think actually creating that opportunity is really important. But then the next thing I'd build on that, guys, is do something with what you learn. Right? So if you pick some things up and you learn some things, by the way, I'm not saying you end up with a huge things to-do list on the back of it, because the actions that come out of that you could still be giving back to the team to go and do the right things, but it's your job as a leader to take those things, to filter them, to build on them, to use them as understanding as to how you're gonna what's the what's the actions that are gonna come out of that and how you're gonna make things better.
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, and I think if you um you know it all sounds too obvious, too easy, doesn't it? To you know, let's you know we we need to do more listening.
SPEAKER_01:Listening is good, listening is um and for those that are listening to the podcast but not watching the video, you won't have seen me there staring at my phone while Neil's talking. I'm listening to Neil, I'm listening to I'm just reading something because I've got to keep up on my mail and stuff as well. I don't want to fall behind. But it doesn't feel like you're listening, it doesn't feel like I'm listening, and this is really important, right? Because the problem is, first of all, I can't have been listening actively if I was also reading something on my phone. I can't have been, unless I'm super, there's no way that could have happened. Secondly, you now don't have the impression that I'm paying attention, right? Um, and and thirdly, it's not respectful. It's not respectful to do that to someone to not be listening to them when they're talking to you because you wouldn't.
SPEAKER_02:You remember that interview we did with the millennials, right? They they said that they felt valued when their opinion was asked, yeah, and they were listened to. And and I think that's the other element of this is if you if you want to be a great leader, you you have to seek input and you have to listen to employees, to customers, to suppliers, you know, you have to but you have to actively go and seek it and then listen. And then you have to use those listening skills we you know we've been talking about, and you know, go and search, go and find a listening course, go and judge, but just be present, be focused on actively hearing what the person's saying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, no, I absolutely agree. Let's look at the way that I know you like to structure these things, Neil. We talk particularly about you know why, why should you do it, what, and how. So the why, I think it's pretty clear, right? If you're listening, you're getting a much better steer on what's happening on the ground in your team. You might pick up some stuff about the business, you might pick up something about a client, but is there a reason for is okay. What's the downside on listening? What's the downside? Takes too long. It's just time. Yeah, that's all it is. It's just time, right? Takes too long. Nothing else. So I certainly think the benefits outweigh the downside.
SPEAKER_02:Or actually, they've got nothing useful to say.
SPEAKER_01:Well, but you but at least you learn something there as well, right? You learn something in there as well. You might learn why is this person in my team?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think the yeah, why is this person in my team? I don't know what they do, but now I've listened to them, I now know what they do. I think there's um so that there's there's all the there's that kind of value that but customers feel valued when they're asked and listened to. Yeah, you hear that regularly, don't you? Employees feel value when they're asked and listened to. Yeah, so you know, we do employee sat surveys, we do customer sat surveys. We're supposed to hear the voice and listen to what they say. If you do a customer satisfaction survey and you get a load of great input, and then you do nothing with that, you haven't listened. Yeah, all you've done is go through a process with no listening. So the why is because you want to run a better business, you want to be a better leader, you want to have more engaged employees, you want to have happier customers. I could go on. So you know the why is significant.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um the the what, I guess the what, I'm not sure on the what, actually.
SPEAKER_01:How would you well the what is as you said, right? Whether it's an open door policy, if someone comes to talk to you, right, listen to them, close the door, put the phone down, leave the keyboard alone, right? Listen to what they've got to say just for that focus point. Look, you set the time period. If somebody walks into your office, you could set the time. I'll give you 20 minutes. Now for 20 minutes, be focused for 20 minutes, right? And see what you can get out of that for you and for them, right? The reason they've come in your office is probably isn't because they're bored and they've got nothing to do, it's because they want your help, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think there's so many different formats of doing this, isn't there? There's informal, there's formal. Um there's but yeah, I think you've if you really want to be a successful listener, it's a bit like when when I'm coaching. If you really want to be successful at coaching, you've got to want to help people, you've got to want to hear what they've got to say. Yeah, if if you're if you're going into a listening conversation with closed ears, you're not gonna hear what people have got to say.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and you know, with coaching, we're taught to listen to what's not being said and listen between the lines.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and and that's not a that tough a skill to master, to be honest. You've just got to really care and listen to what people are saying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I I tell you, I used to I used to enjoy doing the likes of um, I used to enjoy doing the likes of round tables, right? Getting a group of people in and say, tell me what's going on, location to location, right? And and with people, look, most of the time, there is a danger there that people don't feel comfortable speaking in a wider audience, but you might pick something up, right? And and if you can get the right, and that this comes back to something Neil and I talked in the prep. Your reputation's here as well. You can have a reputation as someone who listens and cares, you can have a reputation as somebody who just lets them talk but pretend you're listening, or you can have a reputation as someone who just does not bother. Yeah. If you care about that reputation, think about it. You might not care, right? Personally, I do, but you may not care about your reputation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think the um what's really interesting when you're when you're coaching, when you're listening really hard when you coach, is and you play back to someone what they've said, they don't realize they've said it. Because a lot of what we say comes out uncont you know subconsciously, it just flows naturally, and and actually you can tell a lot about someone's state of mind, you and and um how they feel about something just by the words they're using. Yeah, one of the things I if I hear a word used more than two or three times to describe something, especially if it's quite an emotive word, I will bring it up in the conversation. And I would say eight out of ten times people don't realize they've used that word. Yeah, yeah. Um, I was coaching someone not so long ago, and and it was a lady, and she used the word astonishing about five times. It's astonishing they don't understand, it's astonishing the way the customers react. It's astonishing. Uh I said, what's astonishing is the amount of times you're using the word astonishing. So what does that what does that mean to you? You know, so by listening, you can really pick up on, and if you're in front of a customer and you're you're having that kind of real focused um concentration or with an employer, you're gonna learn so much about their mindset and how they're feeling and what they're thinking.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so you had a quote, I think, didn't you, that you were gonna share? Simon Cynic quote.
SPEAKER_01:There was a Simon Cynic quote, which is fantastic, actually, and it actually says leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who don't have anything to say. Brilliant, brilliant, and that and that's the fact, guys. People get come back to our reputation thing, right? People just give up on you, they'll give up on you. Yeah, but that means you're gonna miss out as well as them. You are gonna miss out on some input that could have been beneficial for your business.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for you. Because they're no no one wants their voice to not be heard, no one wants their voice to just fall on stony ground to mix metaphors, you know. But the so that's a great saying, yeah. If you don't listen, you'll be surrounded by people who basically don't talk to you, don't talk to you, don't input to you, yeah. And uh yeah, and probably won't be working for you either.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. So I think look, just the last one on some tips here. We said about the hows, right? When you're sitting talking to someone, don't forget about your body language, right? Yeah, that will tell them whether you're listening or not, they'll notice that. So think about your body language, eye contact. Yeah, sorry, it sounds a bit patronizing, but these are important things, right? Eye contact and no distractions. Put the phone away, put the stuff down and look at them in the face and in the eye. Um, like Neil did, repeat back what you've heard. That tests whether you heard it or not. By the way, you might have heard it wrong. So repeating it back is good because they can actually confirm that. Um, important lesson we teach salespeople, right? Make sure you're closing down from open questions to closed questions.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and if someone walks in your office, you're sitting behind the desk, get out from behind the desk. Yeah, go round. You can't listen to someone with a barrier between you. Really good point. Go and sit around next or next to them, not next to them, so it's uncomfortable, but you know, where it's uh you're not not got a barrier between you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And the other thing I think I know if someone's listening is if they're also making a few notes as well. Absolutely. You know, just jotting things down as because typically, if you don't want to interrupt someone, you want to make notes to remember things so that when you then uh clarify, confirm, agree what you're gonna do next, you've got you've got some notes on it. Um, but yeah, I think the other point, so to the how is as you've just said, right? Yeah, but I love the point about going out and actively asking, and then that's such an important point uh for leaders to make time to do that and plan time to do that.
SPEAKER_01:The last point I'd make on it, Neil, is if you if you decide you're gonna do this, this is not a how do I just get rid of 20 minutes of my day? Because if you do learn some things, if you do write some things down, maybe you've got some follow-up to do. And that's important you do that because that's really where you're gonna make the difference, not only on the one-to-one basis environment for your guys, why would you not take the chance to do that, right? So do follow up on the things you learn.
SPEAKER_02:It's um it's interesting. So I'll just close off with a uh uh when I told Anna that we were doing a podcast on listening, she nearly fell on the floor. Because I whilst whilst um we all might be good at things some of the time, I don't think we're all good at things all of the time. So I think I'm a reasonably good listener when I, you know, in a coaching environment, when people want to talk to me, that kind of thing. But I'm not, you know, I guess not all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'm just gonna say hi to Anna if she's listening to this podcast when it's actually out there. So that'll be okay.
SPEAKER_02:All right, mate. So look, that's great. I think it's a really good topic, really important topic. Another clue to add to the secrets of how to be a great leader is be a great listener. Make sure you make the time to listen and be active at it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, do you want to just repeat what you said? You froze just for a second, just as you went into the wrap-up. Do you want to just do that?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. I I think it worked all right on this this end. But um, yeah, no, just um remember that here's another great clue to to to great leadership is be a be a listener, be great at listening, be active at listening, and and really yeah, want to do it, want to listen, want to find out what people have got to say. Make time for it.
SPEAKER_01:So, guys, here's leadership detectives trying to give you the clues to great leadership. I think that's a fantastic one to work on, and it doesn't take too much energy or focus, it just takes your time and your desire to want to make a difference. Neil, great to talk with you. Yeah, and G, mate. Good to talk to you. I know you're studying, I know you've got some big stuff coming up. So good luck with your studies, mate, and good luck with your preparations for the next stage.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thanks for that. And and looking forward to you know the next episode. So please uh subscribe, please uh like the podcast and all that kind of stuff that you have to do on online and leave us comments, leave us feedback, and let us know what you'd like to hear us uh talking about in another podcast, please. Excellent. Cheers, guys, take care. All the best bye bye.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Leadership Detectives with Neil Thabron and Albert Joseph. Please remember to subscribe, give us your comments and your feedback. Please also visit leadershipdetectives.com for all the episodes and more resources and support.