LISTENING

Effective Leadership and Effective Listening

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion3

The Four Components of Listening3

Sensing (Hearing the Message)4

Selective Attention4

Noise7

Interpreting the Message8

Evaluating the Message Content10

Memory: Retaining and Responding to the Message10

Active Listening11

Conclusion12

References13

Bibliography14

Effective Leadership and Effective Listening

Introduction

Listening has been shown to be a vital skill for successful managers, supervisors, and professional employees, taking more than 60% of their average day on the job (Peters, 2007). However, “only about one-third of employees say that their managers listen to them” (Sweeney & McFarlin, 2002, p. 294). The rewards of effective listening include many life-enhancing experiences, such as learning, building relationships, being entertained, making intelligent decisions, saving time, enjoying conversations, settling disagreements, getting the best value, preventing accidents and mistakes, asking intelligent questions, and making accurate evaluations (DuBain, 2000; Recce & Brandt, 2005). Finally, good listeners get a great deal more out of small group membership and are more appreciated by their fellow members. This paper discusses effective leadership and effective listening.

Discussion

Good listening is, however, a very complex process, and there are numerous ways to parse it into its component parts.

The Four Components of Listening

Listening involves four sequential components experienced in rapid succession. We must sense or hear the message, interpret or provide meaning to the message, evaluate the content of the message, and retain and respond to the message in the context of an ongoing communication event. Each of these components is in itself a complex process. For this reason, a more detailed examination of each follows.

Sensing (Hearing the Message)

Hearing the sounds, and even being able to repeat the words, is not the same thing as sensing, or hearing, the message. Hearing is the involuntary “physiological process of receiving aural stimuli” (Johnson, 2006, p. 91). Thus, the act of hearing the sounds is nonselective. Sensing or hearing the message, on the other hand, is a voluntary act whereby we choose certain sounds and noises to pay attention to, while avoiding others. This is an important part of listening and happens as a result of our decision to attune to certain messages. Hearing and listening to the message are influenced by selective attention and the amounts of external and internal noise.

Selective Attention

Choosing one message over another is called selective attention. The messages we attune to are the ones that have some “preprogrammed” importance for us. If I am an avid football fan, I will be drawn toward football-related messages. If I'm interested in social or environmental issues, I will tune in to those. If I am a blogger, I will selectively attend to messages related to blogging. If I am committed to social justice, I am more likely to pay attention when equal-rights issues are discussed. On the other hand, if I do not follow the soap operas on TV, I am not likely to pay attention to someone discussing the latest gossip about one of the stars.

There are several reasons we engage in this practice of selective attention as indicated in Table 1. To start, some things are simply more important to ...