PSST! WANT TO BECOME AN EVEN BETTER LEADER - INSTANTLY?

Oh, come on, Rod!  I hear you protest. Instantly? Instantly become a better leader?

I know. I get it. You have spent years honing your skills. Countless hours reading up on leadership. Done a Master’s in it. Done courses; PD programs. Through it all you have become very good at what you do, and what you do has positive impacts and changes lives. Naturally you aspire to become an even better leader, but instantly?

All your patient reading, your courses, your Master’s degree, have taught you that there are plenty of things that matter where effective leadership is concerned.

Take Humility for example. A recent study in the Academy Management Journal found that humble leaders tend to be not just more likeable, but also more effective. In fact, a study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that humility is a “unique predictor” of job performance. Humble people make better bosses and better employees.

And then there’s Vision – that remarkable capacity leaders are supposed to have to foresee the future of their organisation and then take their people there. As Mark Cuban says, Leadership is having a vision: what’s my goal? Then, part two is getting to know the people who are working with me, and what their goals are. And then the real definition of leadership is making those two merge.

Let’s not overlook what you have learned about leading and how good you at it you’ve become. In other words, your Skill – or competence - as a leader. An HBR study found that when a boss can do an employee’s job, that employee is more likely to be happy at work. To paraphrase the researchers, having a highly competent boss is a major positive influence on the average employee’s level of job satisfaction.

And lots of other leadership attributes matter. Your expert knowledge. Your profound and wise judgment. Your capacity and capability in decision-making. And so on.

 Yet, there is one way you can instantly become a better leader:

All you have to do is listen.

In his Proverbs, collated in the Hebrew scriptures in the Bible, King Solomon points the way. Renowned for his wisdom, Solomon knew from experience that plans fail for lack of counsel. His solution? Even way back then, Solomon knew that with many advisors, plans succeed. Proverbs 15:22 reads: Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed.

What made the difference? Solomon learned to listen. To listen to others. To consult, and listen. To question, and then to listen. To seek others’ expertise; to draw on their experience: to listen to them.

A meta-analysis of 144 studies involving 144,000 people published last year in the Journal of Business and Psychology found that listening doesn’t just improve communication and relationships; listening also improves employee job performance.

In short, leaders who are better listeners not only develop better professional relationships, they get better results. Perhaps this happens because they develop better professional relationships.

But that shouldn’t come as a surprise, according to Inc correspondent Jeff Haden (see Want to instantly become a better leader? 144 scientific studies reveal the most under-rated leadership skill, in Inc, 22 Nov 24). 

Yes, there is one way you can instantly become a better leader, Haden attests: All you have to do is listen. Haden goes on to cite some of the evidence from the 144 leadership studies that were analysed.

A study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, for instance, found that asking a question, and then asking two follow-up questions — which automatically means you had to actually listen to how the other person responded — dramatically increases how likeable other people perceive you to be, and likeability matters in leadership! Another study published in Frontiers of Psychology found that likeable people are better able to influence the people around them.

So how do you become a better listener? Haden asks. Easy, he says - all you have to do is talk less.

A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that approximately 40 percent of everyday speech is spent telling other people what we think or feel, Haden shares. We tell others about our subjective experiences: not what you had for lunch, but whether you liked it. Whether you liked the service. Whether you liked the ambience. Whether you would go there again. Lots of thoughts and feelings. And that’s because we’re wired to talk about our thoughts and feelings, Haden continues, noting that the same study found that self-disclosure, whether in person or on social media, causes increased activity in brain regions associated with the sense of reward and satisfaction you get from food, sex, and money.

In fact, the study found many people will turn down money if they’re allowed to keep talking about themselves, Haden somewhat surprisingly observes, continuing,  participants were offered cash if they chose to answer questions about other people instead of about themselves and voluntarily gave up between 17 and 25 percent of what they could have made just so they could keep talking about themselves. To a certain degree, you literally can’t pay people to talk about someone else. They would rather talk about themselves.

But that’s not because people are self-centred, Haden cautions, lest we leap too soon to judgment. We’re wired to talk about ourselves. That’s how we’re made.

Nonetheless, those findings have leadership implications, Haden avers. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found people feel less ‘objectified’ (think feeling like an employee rather than a person, or a name rather than a number) when their boss or employer knows them better. The Journal of Experimental Psychology study found that feeling known is a precursor to feeling supported.

Classroom teachers get this, almost instinctively. Senior school staff, especially staff charged with oversight for the welfare and wellbeing of students know too that their interventions are more likely to prove successful with students if the students feel known to the staff member concerned. In fact, good educational leaders know that the fundamental starting point for quality pastoral care and student well-being is the old axiom, Know your students. When a student feels a teacher knows them, they are more likely to respond positively to that teacher. Knowing they are known and liked by their teacher opens up the student’s trust of that teacher, and their belief that the teacher wants the best for them.

And the same is true of adult workplaces as well.

Haden says you did not need research to tell you that feeling known is a precursor to feeling supported. If I’m your boss, you don’t need to know me — but you do want me to know you. You don’t want to hear about my vacation, but you do want to tell me about yours, he adds.

More to the point, he goes on, if I’m your boss, you want me to ask about your vacation, and then listen. If I’m your boss, you don’t want to hear about my career goals, but you do want me to ask about yours, and then listen — and then help me achieve them. If I’m your boss, you don’t want to hear about my problems with other departments, but you do want me to ask about yours, and listen — and then help you solve them.

In sum, Haden bluntly tells you, Your job isn’t to be known; your job is to know. Your job isn’t to be interesting; your job is to be interested.

And finally, your job as the leader isn’t to talk. Your job is to listen.

As the meta-analysis of 144 leadership studies shows, the association between perceived listening and job outcomes is robust, generally yielding effect sizes indicating strong positive outcomes. The results also underscore the important role of listening as an antecedent to positive workplace relationships and suggest that listening may be an underutilised job-performance predictor and a cause of superior performance - superior performance for the members of your team, and also for you.

Because you already know what you know, Haden concludes, when you listen, you get to learn and benefit from what other people know.

Listen and hear the wisdom of King Solomon: Plans fail for lack of counsel; but with many advisors, they succeed.