An integral part of leadership is the ability to listen effectively. Listening, along with the ability to empathise, is the foundation of good relationships. It provides perspective, understanding and knowledge, and opens the doors to innovation. It is also part of an area that is sometimes in doubt within the veterinary profession. The 2019 Survey of the Veterinary Nursing Profession1 found nurses are not sure that the VN profession nurtures innovation and were negative about the VN profession paying sufficient attention to the development of leadership skills. The RCVS Workforce Summit 20212 delegates identified that some factors they felt were stopping them from innovating included a feeling of not being heard, entrenched/closed mindsets and having preconceived ideas.
When people don’t feel they are being heard, it can undermine trust and cause them to feel they are not valued. Good listening skills are not just concerned with the clear understanding of facts, important for effective clinical practice and patient safety, but with the underlying emotions. They can help others feel secure in voicing their concerns, can defuse tension, build stronger relationships and encourage effective collaboration.
An important aspect of leadership is to listen in ways that allow us to take the opportunities in interactions to gain greater insight – and this requires us to have self-awareness about our own habits, goals and how we choose to respond. As listening is a brain-based function, like speaking, it is individual, and can be developed. Different listening styles are appropriate in different situations, but we may have preferences for listening styles we need to be aware of.
- Analytical or critical listening is most concerned with facts, practicalities and measurable information. It will judge the quality of the information and the reliability of the speaker and can uncover biases, pitfalls or give a ‘reality check’ to a plan. Analytical listeners are often task-focused, can shape a conversation towards efficient information transfer and bring a drifting conversation back to the key purpose, but may miss emotional factors or ideas which don’t have an immediately recognisable value.
- Conceptual listening is focused on idea-generation and welcomes different perspectives and considerations. It considers future possibilities and creates vision, but is often more high-level than detail-focussed. Conceptual listeners are great for engaging and enthusing people in creative discussion which can help to develop their own ideas, but may need help to pin down conclusions or goals and strategies for how to implement them.
- Relational or connective listening is centred around what the conversation means for others and aims to build connection and understand the emotions underlying a message. It pays attention to the speaker’s verbal and non-verbal cues, body language and tone, and is often empathetic, actively reflecting back personal understanding and encouraging the speaker to feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and opinions. It is important for establishing connection and relationship building, but the listener may pay more attention to the personality speaking than on the merits of the information.
If we can identify our default style and learn to move between styles, our conversations can become more meaningful as we respond to the speaker’s needs dynamically as well as gathering information and understanding other perspectives.
Tips for effective listening
Consider why you are listening – what is the purpose of the conversation? What do you want to achieve from it, and what are the speaker’s goals? If you can identify both your own and the speaker’s aims in the conversation, and pay attention to dynamic developments, you can adapt your listening style to suit. Sometimes a conversation may start out functional in nature with a focus on efficient information exchange, but as it develops, you may notice cues that deeper elements need attention and a more relational style of listening can present an opportunity for increased connection and greater insight.
Identify how you usually listen – especially if we are under stress, it may be difficult to flex from our default style, which can limit the effectiveness of the conversation. Being aware of our normal preference allows us to understand whether we may be missing opportunities for information gathering, gaining understanding, clarifying, identifying an emotional need or developing greater rapport.
In busy practice settings, there is often a need for task-focused, analytical listening to underpin rapid decision making, however within this environment we can miss emotional statements that alert us to a colleague’s underlying discomfort, or which could bring greater insight to the actions of the team. Sometimes making a little more space to explore a speaker’s thoughts and feelings can be valuable not just to the team relationships, but also to patient outcomes.
Be attentive – listening is an active skill which requires us to fully engage to process what we are hearing, ensure we understand, and respond constructively. The ability of speakers to communicate can be directly affected by how we are listening – if someone feels they don’t have our full attention, they can become inhibited and less willing to share their thoughts and information. Small verbal cues such as asking questions or voicing brief acknowledgements, and non-verbal cues such as facial expression, nodding, eye contact and body positioning can reassure a speaker we are listening and increase their confidence in communicating with us.
Ineffective listening styles include selective listening, when we pay attention only to parts of the conversation we think are relevant and miss the totality of the communication, defensive listening, when we perceive inoffensive statements as personal attacks and inattentive listening, when we are focused on other thoughts or tasks. These can undermine our conversations, our relationships and our effectiveness.
Listening takes practice but is a skill that can be developed, so try experimenting with listening styles. For a leader, listening provides opportunities to gather ideas and feedback from your team and gain greater insight into the functioning of the business and the reality on the ground for staff and clients. Effective listening also aids our own growth and development by bringing perspective, knowledge and increased leadership capability.
As well as being a powerful tool for developing vision and strategic decision making, good listening skills foster trust and loyalty, credibility and influence, helping to develop stronger relationships within our team, collaborate and problem-solve effectively, and is one of the most important attributes of successful leadership.
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