Being A Good Leader Means Being A Good Listener

Everyone in a management or a leadership position understands the challenges of managing people, and being successful in this role means being a great communicator — and at times, a mind reader.

Navigating the different needs and motivations of staff in addition to understanding a variety of personalities can be a significant task — especially for those new to positions of leadership.

Being a great leader means understanding the first rule of leadership, learn how to listen. And this means, knowing how to ask the right questions.

Starting with a few basic questions can gain tremendous insight into your organization and your effectiveness as a leader:

What is the most important part of your role?

People want to feel as though they’re contributing and that their work matters. Asking this question helps identify how they see their role and how it fits into the overall organization.

This may also reveal hidden issues if the perception of their role doesn’t exactly match their job description or how management perceives their responsibilities. Conversely, it may present opportunities if the individual regulars exceeds their responsibilities and would be better suited in another role.

Recognizing your ‘stars’ and promoting them to positions that match their skills is the best way to keep people motivated and create upward career paths.

How could our process be improved?

This question is a natural follow-up to asking about someone’s role. Often, the people responsible for doing the work are the ones closest to the process and understand the best ways to complete their tasks.

Asking someone their thoughts on how to improve processes is the best way to immediately identify and eliminate inefficiencies — while simultaneously improving morale. Encouraging people to take ownership of their role and recognizing their ideas and contributions is the easiest way to improve the overall health of any business.

What’s the biggest challenge you face?

This is probably the most important question to help identify inefficiencies in your organization.

Too often, companies create policies and procedures that make things more difficult for people to do their jobs. Identifying and eliminating these hurdles not only improves workflow efficiency, but also improves workplace attitudes.

But challenges aren’t always centered around polices or procedures. This question might also identify personalities within your organization that cause conflict or tensions. This can be a delicate topic to discuss but extremely important in resolving problems caused by one or more individuals who can affect entire departments.

What or who is your biggest inspiration?

This can be a bit of a personal question and it’s usually advisable to avoid getting too personal, but this can reveal a great deal about someone’s personality.

If the answer is a historical figure or well-known business entrepreneur, that could reveal longer-term ambitions or motivations that could either benefit or even pose a risk to your organization.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as many highly-motivated people are always focused on upward mobility and view their jobs as a stepping stone to something greater, whether that means promotions within an organization or eventually starting their own businesses. Naturally, employers tend to view this as a risk because they want to retain employees as long as possible — which in today’s environment is an unrealistic expectation.

Someone’s inspiration is their greatest motivation because it’s who they aspire to be someday. The best advice is to encourage their dreams and don’t stand in the way.

What can I do to help?

This, above all, is the most important question any manager can ask. Being a good leader means taking an active role in all the issues that affect the people you manage, and being engaged means being an advocate for the people you manage and doing all you can to ensure they succeed.

Asking what you can do to help can be a catalyst for addressing all the other important questions because it immediately gets to the heart of the issues and concerns employees might be having.

Unfortunately, some managers avoid this question and take a more passive approach to the issues concerning their subordinates because they want to avoid ownership of workplace problems. This can be especially common for those in middle-management who have to balance the relationships of those they manage with the leadership they report to.

As I’ve stated before, not everyone is qualified to be in a position to manage people and if someone is incapable of listening, asking questions, and addressing issues head-on, they can’t be an effective leader in any capacity.

Keep it professional

In addition to all the important questions leaders should ask, there are countless topics that should be avoided. While it’s fine to ask someone about their greatest influence or who inspires them, going any deeper than that into personal matters is an absolute no-no.

Asking people about their personal interests or what they like to do outside the office might sound innocent, but most people find these questions invasive and uncomfortable. This often results in awkward and generalized answers because people feel obligated to respond in some way.

As a leader, your only interest is helping people succeed in their professional roles and it’s none of your business what they like to do in their free time.

Listening is an acquired skill

Sadly the ability to stay quiet and let others speak isn’t something that comes natural to many folks, especially those in business leadership. But it’s a vital skill for anyone in the position of managing people.

The worst thing any leader can do is give the impression they either don’t hear employee concerns — or worse — they don’t care.