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8 Critical Listening Skills Factors for Managers

Written by: Martin Haworth

Article Overview: As a manager, your listening skills play a vital role in a lot of real life situations, especially your workspace. How well you listen to your employees can have a big impact on the kind of work output you achieve. Yet listening isn't that difficult, when you know the tricks...

8 Critical Listening Skills Factors for Managers

Of all the key management activities that you need in your toolkit, the communication skills you need are the most important. Most managers feel that this is all about what they say, yet it's clear from research that listening is much more important. Here are some key listening skills that you can use, starting right away!

1. Full Attention Required - If one of your employees comes up to you discuss a problem or query, you should ideally give them your full attention. Keeping aside your own work for a little while, because its important for any person working under you to feel that you are available for them, any time.

2. No Interruptions - When listening to someone be careful to not interrupt them while they are talking. It is a sign that you are not giving them proper attention. Wait for a pause in the sentence for any interjection or comments. Even then, allowing a silence for them to gather their thoughts, is a really valuable exercise and often produces the most fruitful results.

3. Encourage Them! - Make them feel comfortable and ensure they know that they have your undivided attention. Smile occasionally. Lean in. If you have a grip on the topic of conversation, ask questions, - showing that you are interested in the conversation - and them as individuals! If you are not clear about something that is said feel free to ask for elaboration or explanation.

4. Recall is Good - If you are fully involved in the conversation, you will also tend to maintain a good memory of it, which will be handy for future reference. If, for example, your employee discusses a problem with you to seek your advice, a follow up to the conversation would mean a lot to them.

5. It's a Motivator Too - Your great listening skills also helps to motivate your people perform to their best. Realistically speaking if your employees are happy and feel important and fulfilled in their work, then tangible rewards like pay raises, bonuses etc. take a back seat. Supporting the organization that shows they care (through your excellent listening skills!) becomes their top priority. By involving them in the working of the company as much as possible, it provides them with a clear view of what lies ahead in terms of company plans, future aims and goals.

6. All Ideas are Valued - If one of your employees gives you a suggestion in a meeting or otherwise, encourage them. If you don’t like their idea don’t dismiss it off-handedly. Explore with them where there may be flaws. Your personal experience should feed into the success of the team as a whole. Always listen encouragingly to their ideas and make sure that you compliment them on their enthusiasm and positive participation.

7. See the Value - Informal communication within the office is an excellent way to collect feedback about the way things are going - policies, ideas, plans, relationships even. Not only can what you hear around the place have a great value in terms of 'intelligence', but if you start to get creative, you will seek out feedback from teams away from your own. For example, you might be able to find out how the sales department feel about the impact your admin team have on their side of the business, and use that knowledge to make focused improvements yourself.

8. Don't Forget 'Virtual' - When we are talking about communication, it does not necessarily refer to face-to-face communication. Memos, emails, phone calls, video calls, letters etc are all important in your behaviors. Whenever you have contact from someone on your team, make sure you acknowledge it as soon as you can at least - even if you are going to take time to reply to it. It's just as important as the times you can have conversations - maybe even more so.

If you looking to develop a functional, productive team, it is important to make your employees feel that they are an indispensable part of it. Putting your listening skills to optimum use when you are communicating with the people working under you can truly make the difference.

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  LISTENING SKILLS IN COACHING

Article Tags: back seat, communication skills, elaboration, exercise, fruitful results, full attention, interjection, interruptions, key management, listening skills, management activities, memory, motivator, pay raises, proper attention, silence, smile, tangible rewards, toolkit, undivided attention



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