PSYCHOLOGY
Why Are You Still Talking?
The Art of Listening has Fallen Upon Deaf Ears
Crew resource management (CRM) grew out of the 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster when KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736 collided on the runway at Tenerife North Airport (formerly known as Los Rodeos).
583 people were killed with an additional 61 injured, resulting in one of the deadliest aviation disasters in history.
In 1979, the term CRM was coined by NASA psychologist, John Lauber, who studied the cockpit communication processes for years.
The aftermath of the disaster resulted in serious changes in the way crew members and pilots communicate:
- Less experienced flight crew members were encouraged to challenge their captains when they believed something to be incorrect
- Captains were instructed to listen to their crew and evaluate all decisions in light of crew concerns.
- While retaining a command structure, the cockpit is encouraged to be less authoritarian
- Co-pilots are encouraged to question captains who they observe to be making mistakes.
While many other factors contributed to the collision (e.g. miscommunication, weather conditions, emotional states), one of the reasons was the existence of an authoritarian culture: pilots simply didn’t listen to their crew members. It is through this tragedy that points for improvement were discovered — and accelerated by NASA’s research.
In that vein, organizations with authoritarian cultures will perish and the current millennial and Gen Z workforce will only accelerate their demise.
The worst ones are organizations who claim to have a culture steering away from authoritarian values, yet subtly remain that way due to influencers and leaders in the entire hierarchy.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” — Epictetus, c. 100 AD
Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher c. 100 AD, once said that, in verbatim, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” — this is an indication that as human beings, we should be listening a lot more than we do. Fundamentally, leadership is rooted in the listening business: yet, leaders often fall into the trap of their ego, therefore giving up many invaluable things ing that process.
“Okay, I understand, but how about…”
Reality is, true listening is a skill that many often lack. Often, people are self-absorbed. While hearing someone speak, intrusive thoughts seep into our conscious. People get distracted and they unconsciously decide to pay attention to other things around them.
The real problem is when leaders act like they are listening but instead, are fishing and listening intently for words and concepts they can build the conversation on. The worst kind of leaders are leaders who fish for words and turn those around on the employee in an incriminating manner.
As human beings, we yearn to have our voice heard. Yet, we often neglect the voice of others. Why do leaders then, choose not to listen to others when it is clear that they have to listen to their employees in the management process?
When the employees’ words fall upon deaf ears, leaders fail to extend trust and give respect. The snowball effect can be catastrophic in the long-term if left unaddressed — the unfettered growth of poor leadership is something that can kill any business or organization.
There are a plethora of reasons as to why leaders choose not to listen. Many times, they are rooted deeply in basic human psychology and predicated upon numerous factors that may be uncontrollable.
Before you begin diving into how we can listen, it is important that you at your fundamentals.
Inward Factors
Optimal leadership is when the leader consider improvement points from both inwards and outwards — the fault befalls upon the leader first before anything else. Drilling that sort of strict accountability allows the leader to eliminate as many potential contributing factors as he can before pointing fingers away from themselves.
Impression Management
First conceptualized in 1959 by social psychologist Erving Goffman, it is focused on how humans wish to present themselves in a way that satisfies their needs and goals. While it connotates a neutral meaning, impression management in leaders can create problems, especially if the next action steps do not reconcile with the image that they have built.
Choosing to humble themselves and take in the perspectives of their employees will cause their image to crumble.
Leaders who portray themselves as a certain image often find it difficult to tear away from that — much like a personal brand — especially after years of doing so. In this case, when leaders portray themselves as confident, infallible and all-knowing (i.e. “I know the way”), choosing to humble themselves and take in the perspectives of their employees will cause their image to crumble, which is mentally damaging for them as they had taken on that image for a long period.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
In 1999, then-Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger coined the term to describe a cognitive bias whereby people who are incompetent at something fail to realize that they are indeed incompetent. In that same vein, people who suffer from this bias often feel confident about their competency level, which leads to prolonged arrogance and ignorance.
Dunning and Kruger’s paper in 1999 discovered that Cornell undergrads who estimated themselves to score high grossly overestimated their abilities — those in the 10th percentile rated their abilities at the 67th percentile.
When leaders are beating their own drum, there is no emotional or logical reason for them to humble themselves and listen to their employees: they are the best, after all.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect remains in play when people fail to seek out new knowledge. Leaders who do not possess curiosity, a growth mindset or humility will fall short of other people’s expectations, even though they believe themselves to be fairly competent in their job. Hence, along that line, when leaders are beating their drum, there is no emotional or logical reason for them to humble themselves and listen to their employees: they are the best, after all.
Lacking In Empathy
All humans are capable of empathy — in 2009, neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran presented at a TED talk on his studies on the brain: there are physical structures known as ‘mirror neurons’ which we use to understand the feelings of others.
Some leaders simply lack emotional intelligence (EQ). People with a low EQ often fail to understand emotions, even their own.
Some leaders also have a low emotional threshold. When we experience emotional distress, a neural circuit known as the anterior cingulate cortex gets fired. In a University of Washington study, it is shown that when we observe emotional distress in others, that same neural circuit is fired as well — which means leaders experience suffering when the view the suffering of others too.
Some of such sufferings from others in the workplace context can be complaints from employees, gossiping, rumors, negative emotions from employees and overall poor morale.
Egoistic Leadership
The antagonist of good leadership is the ego and understanding the breadth and depth of a human’s ego is inherently complex.
Predicated on many factors that exist in different periods in a human’s lifetime, its’ growth is often accelerated by poor or non-existent self-awareness.
The existence of ego is a contentious issue, with studies rooted in biology, cognitive science, Eastern and Western philosophy, and even Buddhism. A common interpretation of egotism is that is negative: the human is self-absorbed and selfish, drowning in his arrogance.
Egoistic leaders are leaders who fail to take note of outside and differing perspectives, choosing to believe that they are right.
Egoistic leaders are leaders who fail to take note of outside and differing perspectives, choosing to believe that they are right.
In a 2015 paper by Dr. Patrick L. C. Low at the University of the South Pacific (Suva, Fiji), he described egoistic leaders as people who simply cannot understand why others have differing views from them. Others are seeking their screentime, choosing to talk more than to allow their employees to give their opinions in full.
Mental Fatigue
Mark Zuckerberg famously described his choice of wearing the same shirt every day as an attempt to battle decision fatigue, citing how Steve Jobs wore the same black mock neck every day as well.
Research has shown that our minds have a capacity on how many sound decisions we can make a day — a study by researchers at Stanford and Ben Gurion University found that judges deciding parole cases at 70% more likely to approve them in the morning than in the afternoon.
The converse argument is that decision fatigue only exists for those who believe that willpower is a finite resource — a theory popularised by Roy Baumeister — and that those who believe otherwise often have a higher threshold for sound decision-making. Studies have shown that evidence of decision fatigue does not hold up.
Regardless of belief, burnout is definitely real.
Simply believing that their threshold for mental fatigue is fixed already sets up possible problems: opinions from employees may start to sound like nagging.
Outward Factors
When a leader can eliminate all the possible inward factors, it is then a good time to consider outward factors which the leader is unable to control.
Communication Methods
Context is the key here: some messages are not meant to be communicated via text, and others not meant to be communicated over instant coffee at the pantry. When the wrong communication method or tool is used, it often downplays the urgency of the message.
For instance, using a Slack channel dedicated to bug reports to request a pay raise is a social error. Talking about work at the pantry can also be unwelcome if the pantry is treated as a rest area.
Physical Distraction
Location matters. When conveying an important message, choosing a location where there are little to no people is imperative. Phone notifications are also distractions when they have sound or when they cause the phone to vibrate.
History of the Story
Sometimes the message has already been passed down and the leader is simply listening to the same version of it with a different voice. It is imperative that leaders maintain respect and yet convey the message to ascertain that they already know the issue.
Wrong Settings
Depending on where the message is delivered, wrong settings can also cause leaders to stop listening. For instance, if it is a serious message conveyed in a lift ride down to the ground floor, the importance of the message is diminished.
Let’s Listen For Real
Listening is an art and simply listening to someone without intent is not going to do anyone any good. When leaders tell their employees their opinions, whether indirectly or directly or not, the employees’ opinions are usually biased and less truthful.
The fastest way to kill communication is to butt in first without allowing the opinion to say his/her piece (e.g. “Here’s the problem, here’s what I think… What do you think?”)
Simon Sinek said speak last but poor listeners often confuse that with ‘waiting for [their] turn’. Speaking involves the non-verbal as well and sending wrong cues and signals may also diminish the truthfulness of the thought.
How can leaders listen with intention?
Do Nothing
It is as literal as it can get. A study in 2017 showed how non-verbal communication can have a profound effect on a teacher’s lesson. Non-verbal cues are also shown to indicate how the listener feels and thinks, as shown by a Murray State University study.
This means that slightly shaking your head or furrowing your brows at the speaker is enough to stir emotions of doubt, distrust, and concern, which will ultimately affect the speech as well.
The real value lies in the full, unfiltered opinion.
Interview Them
Build on their opinions. Ask why and how. Rather than jump in all the time, leaders must get their employees to explain the steps they took to reach their conclusion. This helps them form a clearer view of their argument.
Disagree and Commit
Jeff Bezos famously said “I simply disagree and commit” — it is where the leader disagrees with the team but gives them the full, sincere commitment for them to go their way. It is not about the inconvenience of convincing them otherwise but allowing them to weigh the leader’s perspective.
As Gary Vaynerchuk once said in a keynote: “You’re in a listening business.”
Fundamentally, human leaders are leaders who treat everyone around them like human beings, which is often distorted by a plethora of reasons ranging from psychological to societal, from physical to culture.
A genuine and true leader is a leader that kickstarts a conversation for unfiltered opinions. The growth mindset is extremely essential to lead to a point where if it is absent then the leader is considered to be a failure.
Self-awareness and self-control is the only way to combat basic psychological reasons: when you become aware of why you’re not listening, then the way to start listening more in context to you will soon become a lot clearer.
