The Power of Presence: How Great Leaders Truly Listen

Hi there, I'm Ben Morton and welcome to the Leaders Kit Bag, your go to podcast for practical leadership insights. In just six minutes in each episode, we tackle real challenges faced by leaders and managers, offering actionable tools and strategies you can take away and immediately apply. And because leadership doesn't happen in a studio, there's these episodes are mostly recorded outside on the move. They're raw, unscripted and straight to the point. So wherever you are, let's dive in and sharpen your leadership skills six minutes at a time. If you find yourself rushing from meeting to meeting with a head full of tasks and to dos, you might be listening to what your team are saying, but not truly hearing them and understanding their message. And that is exactly what I'm going to talk about in today's episode of the Leaders Kit Bag, how to listen more effectively and the hugely motivational effect that has on those people. That we have the privilege and responsibility to lead the modern workplace, indeed the modern world, makes it very difficult for us to listen well either at work and or home. There are just too many distractions fighting for our attention. And in order to listen effectively and hear the message that people are trying to convey and to make them feel understood, we need to do two things. Number one, we need to actually develop our listening skills. And number two, we actually need to be much more intentional about listening. So in order to listen well, we need to consciously shift gears, if you like, before each meeting or one to one. Simply put, we can do this by just taking a momentary pause. It doesn't need to be long at all where we just step back and ask ourselves a simple question such as what does the person or people I'm about to go and meet or interact with need from me right now? Once we've done that, we can then just create some sort of transitional protocol or ritual, if you like, just to reset and get ourselves in the state of mind to go and listen effectively. This could be just taking a couple of really deep breaths to reset and rebalance. It could be clearing out some of the mental clutter that's going on in our head, or just taking a couple of minutes to do a brain dump and get everything that's going on in here out of our head and into a notepad or digital note taking tool, for example. Now you might think, great Ben, but I have back to back meetings. Like it's just not possible. Well, yes, I hear that. And there are still some options and some things we can do for the meetings that you own and run. Why not set them as 50 or 55 minute meetings instead of an hour and work really hard to keep to that schedule. So you and everybody else has got five minutes to write up your notes and clear your head. Alternatively, if you've got a 9 till 10 meeting and then a 10 till 1031 to 1, you still have a choice. At 10 o' clock you could finish your first meeting, go into your second. Now you could go in rushing unprepared, with a head full of clutter from the previous meeting, and the person you're with might not feel particularly valued or important because you're not fully focused on them. Or you could start that meeting by saying, one second Ben, I've just come from a particularly busy meeting. Your one to one is really important to me. Please just give me five minutes to clear my head and capture my notes from the last meeting before we start. And by the way, feel free to do the same yourself while we're sitting here. Personally, I would much rather a leader who did that and have 25 great minutes with them rather than 30 distracted minutes. So that's how we can shift gears. And then once we've done that, we can also just ask ourselves another simple what energy do I want to take into this next meeting? Or better still, what energy do the people in this meeting need from me? Is it one of curiosity or calmness? Is it empathy or inspiration? And then again, just consciously shift gears to get into that state. And one final top tip to really help those that you are meeting and interacting with, to feel listened to, heard and understood. And this is about your mobile phone. Please, if you want the person to feel listened to, put your mobile phone away and out of sight. There was a fascinating study done by the University of Chicago where they found that people merely having their phone in their field of view, even if it didn't ring, ping or buzz, affected their ability to perform on cognitive type tasks. It actually reduced their IQ in the moment. And the amazing thing was everybody in the study denied that their phone had any impact on their cognitive brain function. They are just too distracting. That's it for this episode of the Leaders Kit Bag. As always, I hope you found it useful. And if you do need any support with training, coaching or speaking at your next event, then do get in touch. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, look after yourself and look after those who've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. Lead on folks.