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.
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.
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.
Most of us don’t think about changing the way that we listen, yet listening would be more efficient and enjoyable if we did. One difficulty that listeners have is getting in the habit of listening in only one way in every listening situation.