There is no denying the fact that communication and leadership are intricately bound together. Almost any book on leadership or any report or statistic will advise that communication is seen as being in the top three issues identified by leaders and managers.
Communication underpins everything you do in your business – miscommunication impacts on time, credibility and money. Time spent repeating instructions, credibility with your customers and stake holders, money lost in misplaced orders and loss of time involved in correcting miscommunication errors.
If you want to be the best leader or manager you can be that means you need to pay attention to your listening skills. You need to listen to your staff, to your team, to others in your organisation, to the public and to your leaders.
If you want to be the best parent, partner, friend, person that you can be you need to pay attention to your listening skills. Listen to what is being said not to what you think you hear or what you wish you hear.
If you are a coach or mentor cultivating good listening skills should be your no 1 priority. You can’t advise, provide feedback or push your client’s boundaries unless you are listening to what their issues are now – where are they in this point of time in their lives – what is impacting on their dreams, their fear or their motivation.
If you want your business, organisation or company to be successful, to be the leading company or business in their field, to be the innovator and to be the company that has a culture of good communication then you need to foster listening skills within your company. You need to work with your staff and manager and leaders to foster good listening skills. It doesn’t matter if you are a sole entrepreneur, a small or medium business, a non profit organisation, or a major company – you need good effective communication skills to get there and to stay there – you need good listening skills. You need to know what is going on around you – where are the opportunities, what needs to be done to foster the great team. Listening carefully will help you identify the areas that need attention and the opportunities that arise.
If you want to be a good presenter or speaker you need to have good listening skills. You need to listen to the audience to judge their reaction and response, listen to what people really want you to say and what they really want you speak about. You need to listen to yourself, to your passion, your dreams and then when you have listened – then you can speak and share.
So if we agree that communication is vital to everything we do and we can see that listening is a vital aspect of communication and leadership.
If we agree with all the books and the statistics and the reports that communication is a major issue for our companies,
Then – Why is no one listening?
Why is no one taking action to become better communicators, to improve the communication skills in their business, their company or their organisation? Why is it that communication training is often seen as a soft skill that gets left to one side when companies, businesses or individuals plan their training or self development?
Are you listening? If so take action now – improve your communication skills. Be the leader you want to be – be a listener and a communicator – take action for you and your business, company or organisation.
Communication involves listening. To be a good listener you need to know when to be silent, when to clarify and when to speak. Then you need to take action.
Are you listening – are you taking action?
Trish@Trischel