It encourages school leaders to notice and to understand that each conversation is the relationship. Mindful listening is about noticing when you’re fully present and when you’re not. To listen to another begins with noticing, and mindful awareness. At times, we are listening for what we want to hear, expect to hear, or hope to hear, again, diminishing true connection. ![]() We may be listening and evaluating, or worse, judging others through a harsh lens. Sadly, other times leaders listen long enough for the speaker to stop talking. Too often school leaders listen to ‘fix or solve’ a perceived problem that calls for empathetic listening. With empathy, school leaders are in a better position to consider not only others’ emotions, but their needs, and values, again, strengthening true connection even across cultural, racial, gender, and ethnic differences.Įxcellence in school leadership also requires clarity and authentic listening. Instead, empathy is about thoughtfully and intelligently taking others’ perspective, recognizing their emotions, staying out of judgment, and communicating understanding of others. It does not mean becoming a doormat, passively agreeing to others with whom you disagree, or trying to please everyone all the time. Before we can thoughtfully consider others’ feeling, we must thoughtfully recognize and understand our own feelings.Įmpathy, according to psychologist and science journalist, Daniel Goleman, in his Harvard Business Review article, What Makes a Leader, is an essential leadership skill. Before we are able to build bonds within school teams in stable times or times of transition and change, we must build bonds of support for ourselves. Sometimes that can be great advice and other times this approach can feel wooden and mechanical, diminishing understanding and trust.Īn important first step in developing empathic listening begins with developing empathy, kindness and acceptance of ourselves as leaders. The basic instructions are something like this: Pay attention, lean forward with interest, make eye contact, affirm the speaker quietly with a head nod or ‘hum’, occasionally restate the speaker’s words or key phrases, and repeat. Like you, I’ve attended many ‘active listening’ workshops and professional development trainings. Hearing is quantitatively faster than visual recognition, at least 10 times faster because hearing has evolved as an alarm system, a way to escape danger and pass on our genes. Hearing, according to Horowitz, is a highly underrated sense. Horowitz notes the difference between hearing and listening. In his New York Times article, The Art and Science of Listening, Seth S. In other words, attention is seldom fully focused. Linda Stone, the former Microsoft executive coined the term ‘continuous partial attention’. Real listening is hard because it is increasingly difficult to focus because of constant distraction and because attention is fractured. The other two conversations are each person’s internal dialogue. The first conversation is the external conversation between the two people. I was reminded of this popular wisdom about listening: When two people are in dialogue, there are actually three conversations going on. Listening for genuine connection and understanding, listening that engenders trust and authenticity asks so much of us. Perhaps one reason for this is that our western culture often privileges the fast-talking, think-on-your feet mode of being. Listening, deeply listening, is a greatly underrated life and school leadership skill. ![]() I don’t think I’ve ever consciously prepared to listen.” I know that I spend hours preparing to speak. When people hear these numbers, they often say: “ This is so interesting. Yet, less than five percent of us have ever concentrated on developing our listening skills. A few hours later we remember only about 10 to 20 percent. Immediately after we hear someone speak, we remember about half of what was said. This constant change of focus makes it more difficult to listen for any significant length of time. ![]() It’s no surprise to note the length of television commercials is usually anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds.
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