The first potential issue with the traditional active listening model is that it creates the opportunity to appear as if we are attentively listening when we are not.

There is a huge difference between appearing to listen and actually listening. I would confidently wager that many readers are quite skilled at maintaining eye contact, smiling, nodding, occasionally paraphrasing what they hear, or at least repeating the last word they heard with a questioning tone. This all while ignoring their counter-parts, thinking about some other pressing issue in their world, or preparing their next response. We cannot fully focus on two conversations simultaneously. Our internal monologue wins anytime someone is talking to us while we are talking to ourselves. 

Another common example of active listening backfiring is when we fail to deliver on a set of directions and expectations we have received. Maybe our spouse, boss, teacher, or friend has asked us to take care of something for them. From their perspective, we appear to be attentive and engaged so they believe we acknowledge and understand the request. Fast-forward to when we fail to follow through, and they feel personally disrespected because we have led them to believe that they had our commitment when we hadn’t fully listened to what we had committed to. 

Appearing to attentively listen should encourage someone to share more information. However, you may end up damaging the relationship if the roles reverse during the conversation and that person asks you questions you can’t answer because your mind wandered. The same risk applies if people expect you to retain the information they shared, and you either never receive it, completely forget it, or must return to ask them again at a later time.

The second potential issue with active listening is the perceived authenticity of the listener. Listeners who robotically respond, interject at awkward times, or consistently rely on the exact same verbal and nonverbal prompts can appear insincere and damage relationships as a result. 

Many years ago, I went on a camping trip with another family. We were all sitting around the fire late one night when an unexpected argument erupted between another couple. The wife stormed off and I ended up sitting at the fire alone with the husband. He told me how he felt about the situation and asked me if I understood where he was coming from. I answered, “absolutely,” because I felt like I truly did. He immediately looked at me and asked, “Do you? Because you always say ‘absolutely.’” I was taken aback. I really did feel like I understood his position, and I definitely didn’t want to appear humoring. Thankfully, I was able to recover and give him a specific example. That night, my unconscious response almost created a real problem, even though it came from an authentic place.

A third issue with active listening involves the potential for our verbal reflections of the speaker’s perceived feelings harming the relationship. The overwhelming majority of adults do not enjoy being treated like children, especially when they are feeling vulnerable. Telling someone what you believe they are thinking or feeling, or what you believe they should be thinking or feeling, can be received as an assumptive and parental approach, which might shut your counterparts down. 

In fact, the word “you” is among the most dangerous words in the English language. The more a listener responds with the word “you,” the more the speaker may feel his or her self-image is being attacked, which risks putting them on the defensive. We will discuss this idea in greater detail in chapter 13. This trap can be avoided by framing your response around the issue, not the person. For example, don’t say: “I can see that you’re angry.” Say: “Being treated that way can easily make people angry.” Don’t say: “You’re clearly upset.” Say: “People can only take being ignored for so long before they become upset.” Or “Feeling upset is a valid response.”

Finally, there are two opportunities that active listening doesn’t expressly address: What should we be specifically looking for during our critical conversations, and what do we do with our observations? Active listening illustrates how to convince our audiences that we are intently listening. Active listening focuses on evaluating the words spoken, observing body language, and emphasizing the importance of responding empathetically. However, the process doesn’t go into great detail on how to increase the power and accuracy of our observations, or how to activate the valuable intelligence we focus on picking up.

From discussions about burnout, stress, workplace safety, the great resignation, and workplace inequality – chances are – leaders have had to navigate difficult conversations more frequently than ever before over the past 20 months.

In fact, a recent survey from SHRM found “41% of U.S. employees feel burnt out from work while another 23% report feeling depressed.” The survey also identified that a large set of employees are “struggling with negative emotions, concentration, and motivation.”

As these challenging discussions continue to occur between employees and leaders, even the most skilled leader may walk away from each conversation with the question, “did that go well?” ruminating in their mind.

While there is no magic blueprint for navigating difficult conversations, leaders may be missing out on key opportunities to connect and effect change with their employees during these talks. To optimize their approach, there are a few best practices leaders can implement into their communication arsenal and a few common pitfalls leaders should keep in mind to ensure they are tackling difficult conversations in a manner that provides positive outcomes for both their employees and the organization. Here are some common pitfalls for leaders

Taking a rational approach to an emotional problem.

One of the first mistakes leaders can make in their approach to a hot button issue is finding a rational solution to an emotional problem. Let’s face it, life is messy, and sometimes there is no direct path in solving a particular issue. Tackling a difficult conversation in this manner becomes a square peg round hole scenario and may inevitably push away the employee as they do not feel heard or understood.

Approaching the conversation from an internalized perspective.

For example, let’s say an employee has booked time on your calendar to discuss the issue at hand. Understandably, from the leader’s perspective, the question they start their thought process with as they prepare for the meeting may be, “What does my audience need to experience before committing to what I need them to?” 

Unfortunately, that’s the wrong question, as it creates an internally-focused mindset and positions the conversation through the leader’s biases, filters, and expectations – not the employees. 

For example, in his 2011 book, Psychology, Peter O. Gray cites an example of how internalized biases can go array in a clinical setting, writing “a doctor who has jumped to a particular hypothesis as to what disease a patient has may then ask questions and look for evidence that tends to confirm that diagnosis while overlooking evidence that would tend to disconfirm it.” Bringing an internalized perspective to a workplace conversation as a leader is akin to approaching the symptom and not the disease.

Enforcing compliance versus commitment

To build employee loyalty and longevity, leaders need to build an experience that allows employees to align themselves with the company’s goals. Wagging fingers at employees and telling them what to do is the wrong approach as it creates an impersonal experience and relegates commitment to compliance, ultimately stifling productivity and ownership. 

Workplace commitment requires creating an environment where the employee aligns their self-image with what they are being asked to do. According to the employee platform, Smarp, 69% of employees say they’d work harder if they were better appreciated. Fostering appreciation from a leaders-to-employee standpoint starts with building long-term commitment.

Tackling difficult conversations with a Three-Step Approach

Leaders generally overestimate the understanding they have of what their employees are thinking. To avoid a scenario where difficult conversations fall flat, leaders can begin by adopting a three-step approach to create an environment that allows leaders and employees to arrive at the core truth by building understanding, commitment, and trust.

Playing the long game 

As leaders prepare for these conversations, they must gain a complete understanding of the employee’s long-term goals within the organization and identify vital short-term goals for the employee that can help them arrive at the long-term goal. For leaders, it’s about playing the long game. Leaders are often operating under stress, and it is easier to focus on short-term tactical goals to immediately relieve the present stress. However, if these short-term tactics do not build up the larger picture, they only serve as a band-aid for the current issue instead of a long-term resolution. Therefore, leaders must show up to the conversation with a complete understanding of the employee’s long-term goals. Before the meeting, leaders should conduct adequate research to gather all pertinent information from the employee’s colleagues, direct managers, and additional stakeholders who work closely with the employee to bring a well-rounded understanding.

Encourage employees to always protect their self-image throughout the conversation

In building commitment versus compliance, leaders need to encourage employees to protect their self-image during these conversations. In short, refrain from speaking to employees like a parent. People react the strongest to what they hear first. Because employees perceive how leaders communicate down as proof of how much they are respected, leaders need to encourage their employees to protect their self-image during these conversations.

Leaders need to think through the message they will be looking to communicate during the meeting and ensure that they’re doing their best to frame the message around the employee’s perspective on their concerns and motivations – not the leaders. In understanding these circumstances, leaders will be able to connect with employees in a manner that they did not expect, as the leader will feel heard and seen.

Build ongoing trust through post-conversation follow-ups

Leaders need to build trust over time with their employees, especially as they tackle difficult situations. One way leaders can prove to their employees that they genuinely heard their employees and are there to help facilitate a clear path forward for them is through the process of following up. For example, leaders can use a takeaway from their conversation and give it back to the employee at another time – hopefully at an unsolicited and unrequested time – to demonstrate that the leader actively listened to the employee and continued fomenting trust in the relationship. A recent report by ADP demonstrates the effectiveness of building trust, with individuals being 12 times more likely to be engaged when they trust their leader. Additionally, leaders need to stick to their word and do what they say they would during the conversation.

Tackling difficult conversations requires a mind-shift

For leaders, listening equals learning. When it comes to effectively navigating difficult conversations, it’s about creating an environment in which the employee can be pleasantly surprised by the leader’s ability to develop genuine bonds in a situation that could have otherwise become adversarial. It requires leaders to set the stage by providing an environment that incorporates proper understanding, allows the employee to protect their self-image, and builds trust by showing the leader is ready to follow up and advocate for the employee. 

While it may seem like a simple switch, leaders need to be wary that they do not fall into the trap of approaching an emotional conversation from a rational-only perspective, bringing their own biases into the conversation, and enforcing compliance versus commitment.

Ticking clocks are the enemy of listening, and COVID-19 has turned life into a pressure cooker for leaders worldwide. Their businesses require more attention, their employees require more support, their families’ routines have unraveled, and their pursuits have been neglected.

The more leaders feel besieged, the more they focus on reducing the time it takes to satisfy their obligations. Focusing on saving time typically drives leaders to choose communication approaches convenient for them, which shortens their delivery and loses empathy for their audiences, creating more problems and demands on their time — continuing the vicious cycle.

As their attention becomes even more divided, especially in a digital landscape, how can leaders hone their listening skills during a crisis? Below are five approaches leaders can use to improve their listening skills when the clock is ticking in the back of their mind:

Fix Your Focus

How leaders define success before their conversations directly impacts their engagement during these discussions. When success equals concluding conversations quickly, leaders communicate accordingly. Audiences who sense this priority often feel devalued, rushed and defensive. Leaders can do two things to avoid creating these barriers. First, focus on the information, value, or commitment they need to obtain during each conversation. Second, convey respect and demonstrate attentiveness by removing any distractions from their conversations.

Listen for Hidden Value

People react the strongest to what they hear first. This is especially true for leaders whose success has taught them to trust their judgment above nearly all others. Leaders are especially susceptible to reacting to the first word or gesture that appears to confirm their pre-conversation expectations. As stress levels rise, communications often become unstructured, and word choices become less focused. These stress-related deviations can create false impressions. Leaders looking to enhance connections and obtain critical information will benefit from suppressing their initial emotional responses and listening for indications of fears, interests, opportunities, and withheld information they can capitalize on.

Remain Contextually Aware

Tunnel vision can be fatal when leaders are navigating complex and dynamic business challenges. Leaders who look back at failed initiatives or missed opportunities and ask, “What did I miss?” or “How come I didn’t know that?” likely ignored previous warning signals. Emotions, pressures, goals, fears, distractions, and even the room’s physical setup can impact how leaders interpret their observations and their resulting decisions. Context is king. It is critical, especially in high-stakes conversations, that leaders remain contextually aware of the forces impacting their audiences’ communication and their own perceptions.

Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast

Leaders create their organizations’ communication climates. They make it exponentially more difficult for their audiences to share sensitive information when they are perceived to routinely rush to the point, inquire judgmentally, and focus on confirming their own beliefs. Certified forensic interviewers routinely obtain truthful confessions, without the benefit of evidence, in under 20 minutes. Leaders can get critical information in five minutes or less when they employ the right approach. Questions can be perceived as invitations or attacks. Leaders should invest the first few minutes of their conversations in setting a calm tone, demonstrating understanding of their audience’s current situation, and ask straightforward questions that invite their audience to let down their guard and share the information leaders genuinely need to hear.

Listen for changes in your audience’s delivery

Slowing down their conversations and dialing up their contextual awareness positions leaders to significantly increase their powers of observation. Leaders graduate from collecting information to identifying strategic intelligence when they shift their focus away from saving time and confirming their expectations. Formerly unrealized indications of emotional shifts and withheld information become crystal clear. They will identify when their audiences are suddenly talking faster or slower and louder or softer. They will start pinpointing when pauses before responding are too long or too short in relation to the question. Additional alert signals such as unfinished statements, misplaced pronouns, and vague descriptions will also become crystal clear. These enhanced observations will highlight opportunities for follow-up questions, additional due diligence, decisions to avoid, and opportunities to seize.

Life is a series of solvable problems. Leaders can choose to focus on the problem, or they can choose to focus on the solution. Concentrating on the sand draining from the hourglass is a problem-focused approach that prohibits leaders from creating the opportunities necessary to obtain critical information. Leaders employ solution-based methods when they identify the objectives they need to achieve, create the communication climate required to receive essential information, and filter all of their observations through each situation’s context.

In times of crisis, people need leaders, not heroes, with the confidence required to listen and remain open-minded to expert opinion.

This isn’t always easy considering that humans are wired to listen and defend what they already believe and to disregard information that makes them uncomfortable. Stress and uncertainty further complicate the listening process when they cause leaders to develop tunnel vision, limit their perception of problems and solutions, and rely on the comfort of their ideas.

Leaders and interrogators share two potentially fatal afflictions — falling victim to their previous successes and believing they have it all figured out. When this overconfidence sets in, they stop listening for unexpected value, and they start listening to verify their assumptions. This confirmation mentality makes it very difficult to see the cliff before going over the edge.

Below are five lessons in listening from the interrogation room for enhancing the perception of your leadership during a crisis.

Follow the first rule of listening:
Talking is the most important part of listening. It is nearly impossible to listen and learn when we are concentrating on our voice. Thankfully, there are several techniques to limit this distraction. First, make a conscious effort to let other people finish speaking before you start, no matter how important you feel your thought is. Second, limit your internal monologue as it is your biggest barrier to listening for value. Our inner monologue often focuses on how we feel or what we want to say next, and it drowns out what other people are saying. The only way we can genuinely listen to other people is if we stop talking to ourselves.

Maintain a Learning Mentality:
Before entering every critical conversation, realize there is a strong likelihood you don’t have all the information you need and ask yourself, “How can this conversation help me achieve my long and short term goals?” During the conversation, listen to each idea that is presented. More importantly, listen to the perspectives, motivations, and fears influencing each concept. Leaders who can tie ideas other people share to their objectives will be far more successful, fostering a sense of collaboration and trust.

Leverage Your Introduction:
Thorough and instructive introductions are the key elements of leading non-confrontational interactions as well as great strategic meetings. Excellent introductions start with a warm greeting and quick check-in to make sure everyone has what they need. Next, they should cover the reason for the meeting, the meeting objectives, and the expectations of the group. This is also an excellent opportunity for leaders to set the tone of the meeting by demonstrating empathy with their volume, tone, and speed of delivery as well as demonstrating humility by being self-effacing.

Let the conversation come to you:
When you chase people, they run away. Few things will kill investigative interviews or strategy sessions quicker than interrupting people. When people feel rushed, coerced, or threatened, they become defensive. When leaders set clear goals, patiently wait for their team to share their thoughts, and politely encourage them to continue sharing when necessary to gather greater amounts to strategic intelligence while cultivating a superior organizational climate.

Prove you listened:
The only way to prove you listened to someone is to follow up with them. Demonstrating attentive non-verbal behavior is excellent, but it is not enough. Following up gives people tangible evidence that you listened, you remembered what they said, and that you found it valuable enough to revisit at a later time. This validates their contributions and increases the likelihood they will continue to contribute to future conversations.

American leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith, likes to say that the biggest mistake CEOs make is believing that they have to be right all the time, even if it doesn’t benefit them. Being right doesn’t help anyone after they’ve fallen off a cliff. People perceive how their leaders communicate with them as evidence for how much their leaders respect them. Leaders who don’t listen will undoubtedly struggle to inspire trust and solicit assistance while fighting to survive a crisis. Leaders who learn to listen will often generate high levels of trust and receive assistance without soliciting it.

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