Listen to Your Staff

The wife of a friend of mine once said, “Don’t listen to what I say; listen to what I mean!” You’ve got to admit, that’s some pretty good advice! But too often we don’t listen for meaning, we only listen to formulate our own response.

Employers have an especially hard time listening to employees. The boss always seems to be rigid when it comes to communicating with employees. On the one hand, you have to be because it’s your company and you typically know what needs to be done to run it successfully. But on the other hand, you have to remain flexible because…surprise!…you really don’t know everything that your organization needs and it’s your employees who are out there on the “shop” floor who know how things are really operating.

I think one of the best shows to come along in a quite a while is “Undercover Boss”. Now granted, it’s a reality TV show and we all know it’s orchestrated, but the basic premise is this: the boss can learn from the employees.

So I’d like to encourage you to take the time and effort to listen to your employees. Like any other person, an employee needs to be understood, needs to be affirmed, needs to be validated, and needs to be appreciated.

You’d be surprised what a difference you as the boss can make in the life of an employee, both on and off the job.

Listening to Avoid Misunderstanding

A good leader listens to volunteers and staff with empathy. How do you do that? You ask good questions and respond appropriately. Learning to ask the right questions takes practice and is accomplished by trial and error. Ask the question; evaluate the response.

For example, “What’s wrong with you?” is, on a scale of 0-10, a flat 0! It’s a bad question no matter how you phrase it. Why not try something like, “You seem troubled. Would you like to talk?” Communication as a leader is all about listening. Empathic listening takes time, but not as much time as it takes to correct the misunderstandings you’ll face if you don’t. Volunteers and staff who are not encouraged to express themselves clearly usually repress their problems which eventually manifest as poor performance.