Importance of listening in leadership

Author: Iloka Benneth  Chiemelie

Published: 14th of july 2014

Thanks so much for your support and I want to expand the idea too. Communication is a very important component when it comes to creating and maintaining strong relationship between people. Communication is actually acquired from listening (Lundsteen, 1979; Wilt, 1950; Wolvin & Coakley, 1996) because when you listen to what people have to say, then you will know what to reply or say back to them. Through listening, leaders are able to enhance communication by dialogue, which is in line with the phenomenological tradition of communication.

In essence, what I am trying to say here is that leaders should also be good listeners. Sometimes, the staffs have ideas beyond the leader’s scope of understanding and it is important that they leaders pay attention to what the staffs have to say. With such competence, they will also be able to understand little things that happen in the grassroots level of the organization and as such develop better solutions to solve issues from the grass root instead of focusing entirely on the executive management level.

References

Lundsteen. S. (1979). Listening: Its impact on reading and other language arts. Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills.

Wilt, M. E. (1950, April). A study of teacher awareness of listening as a factor in elementary education. The Journal of Educational Research 43(8), 626-636.

Wolvin, A., & Coakley, C. G. (1996). Listening (5th ed.). Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers.