Leadership! or is it Followership?
With or without the title of "leader" you must master the traits of a follower to become an effective leader.
Central are the mastery of the five communication skills—reading, writing, speaking, listening, and non-verbal communication.
Of these, listening is the least taught and most underrated skill. Yet it is the most utilized skill by our most accomplished leaders today. It is a pity that this is so.
Why Is It So?
It is my opinion, that it is something that is just expected, thus ignored. But to the fault of all those who expect your listening skill to be advanced (public schools, your spouse, your bosses) understandably, yet they ignorantly don't even consider that nowhere in our society is it taught.
If you want to improve your leadership skills work on your communication skills but pay particular attention to your listening skills. A great follower learns how to become a great leader by improving his/her skills.
Things to be aware of that hinder our listening are:
• paying more attention to the mannerisms of the speaker than to what is being said
• allowing your mind to wander off on a tangent
• allowing distractions to divert your attention
• overreacting to certain words and phrases
• allowing lack of interest or enthusiasm to prevent you from listening
Some skills needed to be a better listener are:
• Tell yourself to listen intently to the speaker
• Discover what the ideas being conveyed are
• Take notes
• Review your notes
• Discuss with someone that you heard and what you thought about it
Assignment:
Practice your communication skills. Pay paticular attention to your listening skills. Go to a lecture or find one online. Train yourself to become a better listener by applying the above mentioned skills. Then you will be ready to become the leader you want to be when your chance comes.
Remember: "You're not learning anything when your speaking."
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Monday, March 12, 2007
10 Tips To Improve Your Leadership Skills
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5 comments:
i am not much of a listener, which i need to work on. so i guess i have to tell my self to:
• Tell yourself to listen intently to the speaker
• Discover what the ideas being conveyed are
• Take notes
• Review your notes
• Discuss with someone that you heard and what you thought about it
improveing communication skills includes the listening and the speaking skills to, one without the other it will never be perfect and will never be enough to be a leader. I think is one of te most important things to do to be a good leader is to improve your communication skills.
I do agree that listening is a skill that is put off to the side. When you go to school or get a job, most people expect you to have good listenig skills. Not everyone acquires good listening skills, it takes time and practice to be a good listener. To be a good leader you first need to become a good follower. Once you understand how it works, you will be more open to new opinons and ideas. V. Run
I agree that listening is a very important part of being in leadership. I have worked for people who did not listen to what you would tell them and then turn around a yell at you for not telling them. It was difficult to work in that environment, but so reliving to then go to a job where my boos would listen to my ideas (and more often that not tell me why it was not a good idea, which he was right about)
Interesting tips. Thanks for taking the time to post.
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