Listen up, leaders! But be ready to speak, too

Sabina Nawaz offered some great managerial advice in a recent The Wall Street Journal article, so I hope, if she reads this, that she won’t take my contrarian reaction to it the wrong way.

Even when I fully agree with prescriptive advice, I often find myself pressure testing it with a two-fold question: How could this go wrong and how do I keep that from happening? So I posed those questions after reading the article by Nawaz.

Leaders who want to solicit ideas and feedback from their teams, Nawaz said, should talk less and listen more. I’m totally on board with that! It falls right in line with something Larry King, the legendary interviewer for CNN, once said: “I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.”

That’s not easy to put into practice, of course, so I also appreciated Nawaz’s practical ideas for exercising our “shut-up muscle.”

Make it your goal, for instance, to be the third person to speak in a meeting. She also wrote about recognizing your “interruption triggers,” the value of taking notes (someone else often makes the point before you have to), posing questions rather than stating opinions, and asking people to paraphrase things you said rather than repeating them yourself.

All great advice, at least in my experience.

So, how could it go wrong?

I see at least two potential pitfalls. First, we could take her guidance too far and not speak up when it would help our team and the team dynamic and, second, we can defeat the purpose by not actually listening well when others are speaking.

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Speak up, for instance …

When the team needs an example. There are times when we need to prime the pump that fuels good ideas and observations. So be ready with a short, simple idea that’s designed to move the conversation along without taking a definitive stance that overshadows the contributions of others.

If you ask a question and the silence becomes deafening, use your, “For example, …” idea and then let others add to it or expand on it.

When the team needs your opinion. If you never weigh in on the topic, your team might think you either don’t care or aren’t prepared.

Your ideas actually might be the best ideas. They might add value to other ideas. They might correct thinking that’s based on bad information. Or you can share what you originally thought and why you no longer see it as the best idea because someone else came up with something better.

As leaders, we have to take a stand at some point. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the former Supreme Court Justice, reportedly once said, “I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.” And yet she also authored more than 200 majority opinions during her 27 years on the court.

There are at least two other warnings worth considering, and both are about effective, respectful listening, so I think they also add value to what Nawaz advised.

One, don’t listen with your mind made up.  A common problem among leaders (including me) is that we sometimes have a sense as to the right direction to go before a meeting starts so we try to move the discussion in that direction by speaking first.

We can counter that by not talking first, but that does little good if our mind already is made up – if we only pay ear service (a cousin to lip service) when it comes to our team’s opinions.

Too often we let everyone share their ideas and feedback then say exactly what we planned to say before the meeting started. Our teams will see through this and our insincerity will diminish trust and morale.

Two, don’t listen to yourself while others are talking. Remember that time when you were having a conversation with someone and you realized you didn’t know what they just said because you were so enthralled by what you would say next?

Of course you do! We’ve all been there, and probably recently. It’s human nature to formulate our opinions while we’re listening to others. And sometimes those ideas muffle our hearing. There’s a difference, as the old saying goes, between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.

So, as Nawaz suggests, go into meetings ready to talk less and listen more, but take care to listen with the intention of learning and be ready to add value with your voice when the right time comes. You need your team’s insights, and they need your leadership. That’s how you find good ideas and move them forward.