Effective Listening
Basic Leader Course (BLC) has been an excellent course that has provided me with useful information on good leadership. Effective listening is one of the best topics in the course. I was interested in this topic because communication is essential in the Army. If leaders in the Army lack good communication skills, conducting different missions will fail since passing the right message to the team will not be done in the right way. For communication to be successful, learning how to effectively listen is essential. This will involve being in a position to fully understand verbal and nonverbal cues used by the speaker. Effective listening is an important topic that helps Army leaders to be effective.
Importance of Effective Listening
Army leaders spend most of their time motivating people inside and outside their chain of command to improve decisions, thinking, and attract actions that will result in more exceptional outcomes. An effective Army leader effectively listens to words of a speaker and is interested in understanding their meaning. The listener ensures that they hear what the speaker wanted to communicate by showing clarification, content, and feelings (OKORO 2018). The listener must keep checking the atmosphere by keeping the channel open. Providing a response by asking open-ended questions is a way of showing the speaker that the leader is listening attentively. Giving the speaker full attention involves watching the speaker closely to detect all nonverbal signals he or she sends out.
When a speaker notices that the leader is attentive, they feel at ease and will end up saying things they might not tell others. It is through attentive listening that a listener is able to detect emotions in the speaker’s voice. Showing empathy is also useful because the listener to fully understand and experience what the speaker is feeling (OKORO 2018). Once the speaker realizes that the listener is caring, it will be easy for them to be open up during the conversation.
A listener should consider paraphrasing what the speaker is saying or clarify if confused to completely understand. Once the speaker realizes that they are getting the attention they deserve through attentive listening, they feel respected and important. It is through the listening skills that an Army leader uses to gain perspective from his subordinates to build a foundation of trust in the team. The listening skills offer an effective way of leading teams since the leader is able to demonstrate by his actions that he is willing to listen. One must be humble and be ready to learn from people of soldiers of different ranks.
Effective listening creates trust since it a way of caring about the team. Building trust is achieved by being approachable not only professionally, but also personally. This will make an Army leader succeed in their role of leading others (Fromm 2013). Soldiers will only be interested in bringing their problems to a leader who has shown through his actions that he cares and he is willing to listen.
A leader should always remember that feeling heard is an essential desire that each person has emotionally. If the juniors feel that their opinion is sought and valued, they will cooperate in every step to ensure that organizational goals are achieved. An effective listener must be ready to put themselves in the shoes of the speaker to understand what he or she is going through. Once the team knows that they have a listening and caring leader, they will be more productive when executing their duties.