Listening as a Leader

Today's class spoke about the topic of listening. This is one of the most over looked qualities of a manger that is absolutely necessary to be a good manager or leader. They mentioned active listening which is a communication technique which requires the listener to fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said. Ideally this is something all managers should be doing when dealing with employees and vice versa. Many managers however do not have the time or focus to actively listen which causes them to have to selectively listen. Selective listening is a listening technique that filters and summarizes to achieve comprehension. With this people focus their attention on only specific aspects of what the person will be saying. If done effectively this can be a very useful tool for managers to use when dealing with their employees and also their bosses.

In an article I have posted below it mentions three levels of listening that people tend to do.
Internal Listening: Which focuses on your own thoughts, worries and priorities even when your pretending to focus on the other person.
Focused Listening: This method is where you are listening to the speaker but not connecting to them in anyway, missing small nuances of the conversation.
360 Listening: In this method you are listening to what they are saying, and how they are saying it and are able to ask questions.

Out of the three above I notice myself doing the first one the most. This is not because I am uninterested with what people say but instead when people say stuff it causes me to think about certain things in my life and my mind tends to get side tracked with other stuff, I have worked towards becoming a better 360 listener but it has been challenging. Working towards  my professional career has helped a lot since it is necessary that I listen in order to keep my job.
In my opinion managers who have started low in a company tend to be very good listeners because in the lower positions you have to be a good listener to succeed. Entrepreneurs might be a good leader but struggle with listening because they have never have taken orders or directions from other people therefor not being able to practice the necessary listening strategies you get over time.

https://hbr.org/2016/05/listening-is-an-overlooked-leadership-tool