Why leaders don't listen

Sometimes leaders don't listen because they are afraid it makes them look weak, or because it takes too much time, or because it might mean they themselves have to change. This can be too true in the church as well as in the world. I thought the below were some good insights worth listening to.. about leaders being able to listen 🙂

Listening has its enemies

Our findings support existing evidence that managers who listen well are perceived as people leaders, generate more trust, instill higher job satisfaction, and increase their team’s creativity. Yet, if listening is so beneficial for employees and for organizations, why is it not more prevalent in the workplace? Why are most employees not listened to in the way they want? Research shows that a few barriers often stand in the way:

• Loss of Power. Research from our team has shown that some managers may feel that if they listen to their employees they are going to be looked upon as weak. But at the same time, it’s been shown that being a good listener means gaining prestige. So it seems managers must make a tradeoff between attaining status based on intimidation and getting status based on admiration.

• Listening Consumes Time and Effort.In many instances, managers listen to employees under time pressure or while they’re distracted by other thoughts or work. So listening is an investment decision: managers must put in the time to listen in order to see the future benefits. 

• Fear of Change. High-quality listening can be risky because it entails entering a speaker’s perspective without trying to make judgments. This process could potentially change the listener’s attitudes and perceptions. We observed several times that when we trained managers to truly listen, they gained crucial insights about their employees — they were stunned to learn how little they knew about the lives of people they’d worked with for many years.

Source: https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-power-of-listening-in-helping-people-change