Listening is the most Important Skill for Effective Leadership Communication
Communication in the workplace, how the people interact, and how they work together to achieve the ultimate goals of the company or the more specific goals of a team will always be an important factor to consider. The quality of communication between employees in a particular workplace setting can spell the difference between a flourishing and a stillborn organization.
There is a myriad of choices and approaches as to how administrators and leaders can improve the quality of communication in the workplace. For decades, the issue as to what the most important skill or communication component to develop has been the topic of debates, discussions and evidence-based research papers about organizational structures and from a larger perspective, sociology.
This paper tries to argue that listening, being an important component of both linear and bilinear types of communication is the key factor and by far the most important skill that employees can learn for effective and collaborative leadership communication. The premises used in this paper are backed by scholarly sources and are researched using an evidence-based approach. Indeed, being able to listen is the most important skill that an individual cannot afford not to learn and consider when it comes to best communication practices in the workplace.
Background Information
There are various models of communication that describes how a normal conversation between two or in a group of people could or should look like. The most widely used and accepted among those models is the Shannon and Weaver model of communication. It is by far the simplest and easiest to comprehend among other models of communication. In Shannon and Weaver model, there are only three key components; the sender, the receiver and the channel or medium of communication. Obviously, the sender is the one that sends the message, the receiver is the one that listens and lastly, the channel serves as the device or mechanism that enables the sender and receiver to communicate. In the workplace, this communication model is also the one that is most likely used.
Communications skills are only as important as the key elements of the various models of communication. Without such skills (e.g. listening, speaking, verbal & non-verbal skills) employees will not be able to express what they feel, think or want to accomplish and discern what people feel, think or want to accomplish. Employees will not be able to build partnerships, motivate each other resolve disputes and conflicts (Rodriguez, 2008). Vital processes in the organization, especially the ones that largely and solely rely on effective communication as a success indicator will be affected and in the long run, the organization will be crippled.
Listening skills even play an important role in the marketing and advertising industry. Experts study how people use their sense of hearing to perceive things and from that, they generate ideas based on what they think people will like. In the workplace, it can be kind of the same because listening evidently plays a key role in every conversation. Impair a person’s hearing and that could do a lot of changes to the way he understand things.
Supporting Facts and Evidences
Vlachoutsicos (2011) stated that “an empowered team enhances everyone’s performance, including the manager’s.” However, the problem is how can a team be empowered? Speaking skills as well as the ones that enable an individual to be understood indeed help a group of employees interact more effectively within the workplace, making it a factor that cannot be neglected. But what would happen if everyone in the room would possess great speaking skills and other skills that enable them to express everything about them more effectively? Chances are the whole workplace will be chaotic and people will not be able to understand each other very well because of the noisy environment filled with people who all want their voices to be heard.
This was actually the method that Rautalinko (2004) used to prove that listening can be a more fruitful skill to learn than speaking skills. He however did not forget to mention in his research that pure listening without knowing how to express one’s can be an indicative sign of shyness or lack of confidence or even low levels of self-esteem. Both listening and speaking skills, with more emphasis on the former can actually be more effective than pure listening.
The importance of listening and the advantageous effects of focusing on developing employees’ listening skills have also been recommended by Rappaport (2010) in his study. The study was actually more focused on the effects of listening in a marketing company’s goals and how teaching employees to further improve their listening skills could be beneficial for the corporation in the long run. At the conclusion section of his study, he finally stated that among the myriad of communication skills out there, enhancing one’s listening skills can prove to be the most helpful in accomplishing corporate goals and simpler marketing strategy goals.
A group of employees whose listening skills are more profoundly and intensively trained can prove to be a more productive, effective and efficient group compared to other groups who were only taught the basics and essentials of listening. Listening skills greatly affect an employee’s performance. Poor communication skills can lead to lack of coordination and then later on failure to meet the team’s objectives. It can also be the cause of a drastic decline in an individual or worse, a team’s work performance. On the one side, it can also dramatically increase an individual or a team’s work performance (Harnet, 2010).
All of these evidences support the fact that the listening skills are not just options; they are prerequisites for a higher quality of communication and in the long run, an indicative factor of success. An organization composed of employees or members with good listening and communication skills are bound to succeed.
Conclusions
Based on the evidences presented in the paper, it is valid and acceptable to believe that listening skills are by far the most important communication elements to consider if the goal is to improve corporate performance and improve the overall quality of communication in the workplace. It has also been proven that a combination of listening and speaking skills, with greater emphasis in the former can be more effective in achieving corporate and individual goals.
This can actually be pretty easy to employ in the workplace. A bi-monthly or even a monthly allocation of time and resources for a seminar that aims to improve the listening skills of everyone in the workplace can already be effective enough. This is actually already being done by some of the biggest companies and organizations and results show that such step, to develop listening skills of employees, is really beneficial not only for the ones working inside the workplace but for the overall performance of the company in the market.
Another approach that workplace and office administrators may also try to use as a strategy is to organize the workplace in a way that will encourage free, unrestricted and open communication. An office room isolated from the rest by concrete walls sealed with locked doors and small windows clearly does not encourage development of listening and overall communication skills. An office workplace divided by semi-high walls or cubicles can actually do the trick.
Listening is indeed a very important part of communication. Listening is also a very important mechanism that enables an individual to learn a lot of things. Ever compared the level of learning that people with hearing impairments and people without hearing impairments have? Of course the people who are gifted with normal sense of hearing will be more effective listeners than those that are hearing-impaired.
It’s really clear that listening skills is the most important thing that workers cannot afford to neglect. It helps managers build a better workplace; it encourages teamwork, collaboration and better work results. But even so, it other skills that can also be utilized to increase the quality of communication in the workplace should never be neglected. These skills work hand in hand and compromising one cannot really do the trick and will always lead to poorer results (Fonseca, 2012).
Works Cited
Rodriguez, L. (2008). Communication in the Workplace. University of South Carolina Press.
Vlachoutsicos, C. (2011). How to Cultivate Engaged Employees. Harvard Business Review Vol. 89 Issue 9.
Rautalinko, E. (2004). Effects of Training Reflective Listening in a Corporate Setting. Journal of Business & Psychology Volume 18 Issue 3.
Harnet. (2010). Importance of Listening Skills in Professional Life. Journal of Applied Psychology.
Fonseca, B. (2012). Psychoanalytic Listening to A Company’s Employee. A work that is possible? International Forum of Psychoanalysis.
