Analytical Diaries

Usually the lifecycle of new ideas progress through several stages: First it is ridiculed, negated and called impossible. Then it is labeled irrelevant and at last it becomes what everybody knows. When you want to move an idea from the first to the last stage you have to employ possibility thinking. The bestselling author Milan Kundera found his own metaphor for the fact that as leaders we have to think, listen, speak and act differently than when we manage. He wrote: “When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”

So as we have started with our own thinking and learned about the possibility to break free from our inner box by reflecting on our own worldviews, we now have to move to the second most important lesson in leadership – on how to listen. Most of the times we don’t pay special attention to the way we listen. It is something intuitive and we do it so regularly that almost everyone considers himself a good listener. But most of the time we are listening in one of two modes.

• When we are in evaluative listening mode we are trying to find the flaw in whatever out communication counterpart is saying. We constantly check what is said with what we know ourselves and are quite ready to intervene or at least, in a more polite manner, mentally note down the flaws and counter arguments for later use.
• The second regular listening mode is when we listen for action. Here we constantly ask ourselves how what is said will or might impact ourselves. Often political conversation within companies is full of evaluative and action screening listening.
• The third and rarely applied mode of listening is how leaders try to listen: In a constant state of active mutual support.

When we listen for possibilities we are trying to support what is said by our own stories and experience. And even if we are skeptical of what is said we try to think about the possibility and what experiences could indeed make that possibility a reality. When you are in that mode of listening, you are constantly trying to speak for someone or for something.

And indeed it is a great daily exercise for every aspiring leader to pick one person in your professional environment and actively speak for him or her in front of other people. You will find that it is very unusual at first and depending on the level of leadership culture that prevails in your company it might even trigger some cynical comments. Do it anyways and make it a habit and you will find how this practice starts to change the way your communication flows. Because leadership indeed occurs in conversations it is very much about which stories are people telling about you whenever you are not there. Hence another definition of leadership is to leave your environment saturated with positive stories. With every story you can choose to manifest ones worldviews or to alter them.