“Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.”

John Maxwell

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey says Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. This habit emphasizes listening skills before speaking skills. Listening is more than the physical process of hearing words. And, effective listening, a leap beyond just listening, does not come easily. Effective listening takes time, concentration and the completion of multiple tasks. 

 Of course, one of the tasks does include hearing the speaker’s words. The second task is understanding the message intended by those words. The words and their intended message also convey some level of importance to the speaker, which must also be understood by the listener. When those tasks have been completed, the next task of the listener is communicating that understanding back to the speaker. Effective listening is an intellectual and emotional process in which the listener integrates all of these tasks in the search of meaning.

Leaders, who are perceived as effective listeners, are seen by their subordinates to be effective leaders. Said another way, one component of effective leadership is effective listening. Other researchers have come to a similar conclusion from a different path. They have found that leaders who were rated as poor listener were also rated as ineffective leaders.  Several research studies have found that individuals are often eliminated from consideration for leadership positions as a result of some undesirable personal attributes.  Poor listening skills are the poster child for undesirable personal attributes.

In their book The New Art of Managing People, Updated and Revised: Person-To-Person Skills, Guidelines, And Techniques Every Manager Needs to Guide, Direct, And Motivate the Team, authors Hunsaker and Alessandra say, when people are listening, they tend to listen in one of four general levels. Each level, requires a different degree of concentration and sensitivity. These levels do not have distinct lines but consider them as a gradient that is descriptive of how people listen. As a listener progresses from the first, through the fourth level, their potential for effective listening increases as does the degree of understanding, and trust felt by the speaker.

Level 1: Non-Listener

The non-listener, does not hear the other person (sometimes, literally does not hear the words) and does not make any effort to hear what the other person is saying. The non-listener is primarily concerned with doing most of the talking, constantly interrupting the speaker, rarely interested in what the speaker has to say and usually has the last word. This person is typically disliked or tolerated by people.

Level 2: Marginal Listener

At the second level, the marginal listener, is hearing the sounds and words but not really listening. This type of person is a superficial listener, staying on the surface of the problem, never going deeper. Problems are postponed to the future rather than dealing with them in the present. They prefer to evade difficult or technical presentations, and when they do listen, they tend to focus on the bottom line, the facts, rather than the main ideas. Marginal listening is extremely dangerous, because there is enormous room for misunderstanding when they only superficially concentrate on what is being said. The speaker may believe they are being listened to and understood when in reality they are not at all.

Level 3: Evaluative Listener

At the evaluative listening level, the listener is actively trying to hear what the speaker is saying, but is unwilling or unable to understand the intent. They tend to be a more logical listener, who is more concerned with content than feelings. This listener does well in “parroting back” the words that were just spoken but totally ignores that part of the message that is carried in the speaker’s body language, vocal intonation and facial expressions. The evaluative listener believes that they understand the speaker’s message but the speaker does not feel understood. The evaluative listener forms opinions about the speaker’s words even before the message is complete and risks not understanding the true meaning of the message. This often leads to tense behavior and deterioration of the trust bond.

Level 4: Active Listener

The highest and most effective level of listening is the active listener. When leaders refrain from evaluating the speaker’s words, and attempt to see things from the speaker’s point of view they are using the fourth and most effective level of listening. Active listening requires that we listen not only for the content of the speaker’s message, but more importantly, for the intent and feeling of the message as well. The active listener is able to demonstrate to the listener, both verbally and nonverbally that they are truly interested and listening. They are usually skillful questioners, but never interrupt and are always fully present. Active listeners are often described as being very empathetic.

There is a positive correlation between effective leadership and effective listening skills. Actively listening to and empathizing with what people have to say are two of the important qualities of effective leaders. The leader who makes a habit of active listening promote positive work relations, inspires trust, and ultimately increases the “bottom line.” Effective leaders recognize people have a need to be heard. 

 Effective listening does in fact take more time. Many very busy leaders have said they wish they had more time to listen.  I have seen too many leaders suffer the consequences of not listening, only to later say, they wish they had taken more time to listen. As it turns out, effective listen is an investment of a leader’s time.