Why So Many Tech Leaders Don’t Listen?

Leadership

Communication Intelligence is always first about understanding what we do. And there’s one skill in there that a lot of Tech Leaders are not treating with respect. Not a lot of them focus on that one, and it costs a lot. I’m talking about the listening skills.

When I was doing the research for the book that I’m going release soon, I was thinking about different angles of CQ. All of the algorithms that people are using consciously or mostly unconsciously when communicating with other people, especially when being leaders. And there are so many courses, books, podcast episodes, articles, YouTube videos, and TED Talks about speaking, public speaking, or speaking to others. But it dawned on me that there are not a lot of courses and other sources of knowledge about listening. And I’ve started to wonder why that is.

I think it is because we think that listening is so easy. You just need to sit and listen, right? Nothing further from the truth. To make a little mindset and skillset shift in this area, today I’ve decided to give you 4 types of listening and some active listening tools and techniques for tech leaders. Let’s dig in!

4 Types of Listening

There are 4 types of listening that tell us more about our intrinsic, mostly unconscious motivations: Why do we even go into the conversation with other people?

Listen to reply. This is what most of the people do. We listen only to make a moment for ourselves to tell something. We are not listening for other reasons. And if we have this habit of not interrupting, we just cannot wait to jump in and say something. Most of the time, for us is to share information. So, saying what we know, what we have in our brains. We are not there to do anything more than reply.
Listen to understand. In this type, people paraphrase, they ask additional questions; they can tell something like: “OK, this is interesting; tell me more.” They can say something with their own words, like: “OK, so I understand from what you’re saying that… Is that correct?” It is to understand, without guessing.
Listen to connect. When people want to connect with us, they go deeper. They talk about something important for them, and they share reflections, opinions, values, thoughts, or emotions. They want to connect and find something meaningful for both sides. So, they ask more, they are more attentive, they’re curious about the other person, with an intention to build a relationship (regardless of the context).
Listen to co-create. I’m listening to you to create something together, to make some value, to create a solution, to solve a problem, to create a functionality together, or to make a change. We are co-creating something, building a thing that can be valuable or useful for other people. So, I’m listening to what you’re saying, you’re listening to what I’m saying, and we make the synergy from those two things to create something together.

Statistically, most people are listening only to reply. Secondly, they listen to understand. Then they listen to connect with some, and very few listen to co-create. The question is: Why is it happening in that order? From my observations and experiences with different leaders, teams, and organizations, it happens because of the way we work and the pressure we have (external and internal).

So, my advice for you here is to just reflect on what you do. Next time, when you are going to have a conversation with somebody, just be more aware of how you respond to them and what you’re doing. What do you have in your brain? What is your priority for the conversation? What is the goal of the conversation? It can be private, and it can be professional (maybe private even is going to be more insightful). If you’re only talking, talking, talking, talking to vomit information on the other…

Make a pause and observe: “Hey, I’m doing it. How can I be in a different bucket, more curious about the other person, more attentive to what they’re saying, more observant of them?”. Start with that small step, notice the difference.

And how to do it? Here’s a list of simple techniques to strengthen your listening leadership muscle.

Active Listening Techniques for Tech Leaders

#1 Paraphrasing

It’s literally repeating what the other person said with a few different words. It’s the simplest tool to check if you got what was told, not assuming that you did. You can start with: “What I’m hearing is…” or “From what you say, I understand that…”. Facts, not opinions. Even if you are a Base Persister, you need to stick to the information without using much of your own frame of reference. Paraphrasing is for you to confirm understanding and de-escalate any misunderstandings that can appear during the conversation.

#2 Asking open-ended questions

This is the one that a lot of people struggle with. What I observed over the years of working with people from different cultures, it differs from culture to culture. Some countries have a preference to ask closed-ended questions to maintain harmony and avoid confrontation (i.e., Poland, Japan, Korea, Latin America, India). And some of them ask more open-ended questions to drive clarity and efficiency in discussions (i.e., USA, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Arab countries).

Asking closed-ended questions is fine if you want to get a straight, yes/no answer. But especially during workshops when we train with leaders on how to give feedback or just use the requestive PCM^® channel, it appears how often they use this type of question by coincidence, purely unconsciously. And they’re so surprised that they don’t get the answer they aim for: Especially when they ask a closed-ended question with negation inside (i.e., “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”).

Open-ended questions directed to the Base Thinker or Persister will open a whole new conversation. You can get to know so much, only from changing one piece of the sentence. Magic.

#3 Cutting distractions

Maybe it’s not a technique per se, but to listen to the other person actively, you need to be focused. And if you have an open computer in front of your face or a bunch of notifications on your phone that are vibrating or constantly making sounds, it’s almost impossible for you to be focused 100% on what’s happening in the conversation.

If you’re onsite: Close the laptop, put your phone on airplane mode. Maintain eye contact, nod, and make notes if needed. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, make it meaningful.

If you’re online: Put your phone on airplane mode, turn off the notifications on your computer. Remote setup is more burdened with distractions, so you need to be even more mindful about what you do.

#4 Using pauses

Leaders are quite often unconsciously afraid of silence. They think that if there’s no talking, everybody will feel uncomfortable. Pauses are a powerful tool, though: They give people a chance to think, to breathe, to make a better decision. I don’t say that we should use them all the time, but especially when the discussion is very passionate, and people have different opinions or ideas, count to 3 after a person speaks before responding… Can be a game-changer.

#5 Using 5 / 7 “Why?” or “What else?” tool

This is an oldie but goodie. The “5 Whys Method” was created in the 1930s by Sakichi Toyoda, the Founder of Toyota Industries. The key thing about using it is to dig deeper into what’s underneath the surface and, thanks to that finding the real root cause of a problem, conflict, or a reason for being stuck. Over time, it grew into 7 Whys, but the truth is you can use as many Whys as you want: The most important thing is to get to the essence you look for.

You start with a surface issue, like: “Mike wants to quit his leadership job”.

Why?

Because he doesn’t want to do it anymore

Why?

Because he’s frustrated

Why?

Because he doesn’t have what he needs to be efficient in his job

Why?

Because his boss didn’t give him clear directions or goals to achieve

Why?

Because she assumed he knew

The assumption was the first step of this whole misery, not that Mike was not right for the job.

You can use 5 Whys during a 1:1 or a team meeting to listen to the reasoning of your people. You can also mix it with a “What else?” question while looking for solutions, blockages, or risks that we need to map in a certain process, project, or initiative.

The truth is, your team is the closest to the processes and technology they use or build, so 80% of the answers to the questions are already there. You just need to listen actively to what they have to say, not assuming so much, but rather turn your curiosity on and sit at the table with them with your mind open.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing for you, as a leader, is to be more mindful about what is happening around you. I know that you are busy, occupied by a thousand different things. But the way you approach being a leader, how well you listen to other people (especially your direct reports), is crucial to your success.

So, today is the best day to start treating others with curiosity. It will save you so much time in future misunderstandings, conflicts, and gaps in contracting that you’ll feel sorry for yourself that you haven’t thought about it earlier.

Go and be better. There’s always a space for it, no matter how busy you ar

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