On ABC’s popular show Dancing With the Stars, there are countless stories of listening failures on the dance floor, resulting in missed steps, injuries and elimination from competition. Many people haven’t been trained to listen critically, and instead, get distracted and focus on the person who speaks the loudest or most often.
An impression made in the first few seconds of a conference call, for example, determines whether or not participants will be attentive or tune out. To make the best impression with those who can’t see you, leaders need to think differently.
Do you find yourself avoiding situations that require you to listen? Would you rather read a report or send a text or email rather than having to talk with someone directly? If you are a leader, especially a leader in the medical or other service professions, you may be experiencing listener burnout.
When leaders fail to listen to employees, they put their companies at risk of missing out on new ideas, losing both their customers and their best people and earning a reputation as an unattractive place to work. It is estimated that as many as 40% of current employees would leave for a better environment if a position became available.
There seems to be a global crisis in how business leaders’ communications are perceived with only 24% rated as effective. This is a crisis because, for the second year in a row, communication, particularly transparent communication, was ranked as the most important attribute of effective leaders.
We live in the age of information overload. Yet, after years of connecting with and getting information to people instantaneously, there is a yearning to get back to communication basics.