Region 9: Leading With Your Ears

Leading With Your Ears

Jared Randall, Region 9 President

If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about your school community…

What would you change?

I have pondered this question on many occasions and keep coming back to the same idea. I would use my magic wand to ensure everyone in my school community would listen better. I would listen better to staff, students, parents, and colleagues. Staff would listen better to students, each other, and parents. Parents would listen better to their children and school staff. Children would listen to staff and parents better. Imagine the possibilities if these listening improvements became a reality. Staff morale would improve, student learning would shoot off the charts, behavior referrals would plummet, angry emails from parents would cease to exist, and everyone would thrive. Unfortunately, we don’t have any magic wands coming our way and, like most other things in a leader’s life, change needs to start with us. 

Before we dive into how we can lead with our ears, let’s explore a few reasons we, and almost all other human beings, are so bad at listening. First, our ego gets in the way. We don’t listen to understand, rather, we listen to respond. We listen just enough to formulate a response and then sit quietly until it is our turn to lay our infinite and infallible wisdom on those lucky enough to hear us. Second, most humans talk at around 225 words per minute, while our brain can listen at 500 words per minute. For our brains, listening to others is like watching a movie in slow motion, so it is not surprising that our minds wander and lose focus. Of course, we must also mention how technology has affected our ability to listen. In her book, Your Not Listening, Kate Murphy references a study from the University of Essex which found that the mere presence of a phone on the table - even if on silent - makes those sitting around the table feel more disconnected and disinclined to talk about anything important or meaningful, knowing if they do, they will probably be interrupted. While technology has not made listening any easier, issues with listening are not a modern problem. Epictetus, a stoic philosopher who lived around 2000 years ago, famously warned, “We have two ears and one mouth, therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak.” Shakespeare, in Henry the IV, which was written in 1596, wrote the line, “It is the disease of not listening that I am troubled with all”. 

There are myriad ways to become a better listener. The most important and all encompassing choice is to cultivate humility. My favorite definition of humility comes from Brian Kight, who says that humility is “strength under control”. Often, people enter conversations with the goal of being understood. When we enter a conversation with humility, and keep our strength under control, our entire mindset changes and our sole focus becomes understanding the other person. As M. Scott Peck said, “True listening requires the setting aside of oneself”. 

To solely focus on the other person, you must start by putting your technology away. Close your computer, put your phone away, and don’t check your smart watch. Don’t multitask. Single task. Your single task is to make the other person feel heard. Next, you must use your excess brain power to discern what the other person is communicating via their word choice, their facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. Try to discern what the person needs from the conversation. Do they need a listening ear, advice, a thought partner, or feedback? If you aren’t sure, be humble and ask. As leaders, we are often in permanent problem solving mode, so we immediately start giving solutions and solving problems. People don’t need leaders with all the answers. People need leaders who will listen and see them as human beings. Leaders who don’t listen find themselves surrounded by people with nothing to say.

Another way to display humility is to ask follow up questions. Asking follow up questions accomplishes a few things. First, it signals to the other person that you were paying attention. Second, it makes the other person feel heard and understood. Third, it helps you genuinely understand what the other person is trying to say and what they might need. Be humble and keep asking questions until you genuinely understand and the other person feels understood.

As leaders, how do we know if we are listening well? The important thing to remember is that listening well, or leading with our ears, isn’t about us or how we feel. The key to being a good listener is making the other person feel seen, heard, and understood. I love what a biographer wrote about novelist E.M Forester, “to speak to him was to be seduced with an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.” Ask yourself, when people in my school community speak to me, are they seduced with inverse charisma? Do they have to be their most honest, sharpest, and best selves? If not, I encourage you to cultivate humility and continue to work on leading with your ears.