Listen to Lead

What have you listened to today?

That seems like an easy question to answer: the morning radio show, the news, the car horns outside my window, my boss giving me directions for the day.

We spend much of the day listening, and yet, do we know how to truly listen? Lately the message I have been getting is, no, we don't. 

At GIVEN: Catholic Young Women's Leadership Forum, which I attended in June, Stephen Giordano taught us "listening skills for leadership." Stephen claimed that a true leader empowers others to solve their own problems. To do this, a leader must know how to listen. By listening, a leader can "Identify the problem, Clarify the goal, Ask for their ideas, and Provide input and resolve." 

A month later, I am reading Genership 1.0: Beyond Leadership Toward Liberating the Creative Soul by David Castro, who also argues listening is the gateway to healthy leadership. Traditionally, leaders can be so focused on their own agendas, that they are not open to creative dialogue. Listening, on the other hand, "allows the agenda to remain open and to harness vital creative energy from others." 

Between Castro and Giordano, there are many pitfalls that make us bad listeners. From getting distracted by “squirrels” (yes, Giordano referenced Up), to taking on the other person’s problem (or “monkey”) instead of helping them solve it, to always relating an issue back to our own personal experience – enemies of listening are endless, and they are easy problems to fall into! I certainly am guilty of a number of them at any given time. 

Are these enemies of listening natural or are they learned? Is this only human, or are we somehow malformed listeners? And if the latter, what has contributed to our malformation?

A number of you out there will say technology! Cell phones! Kids today are so distracted! And maybe you are right, but I cannot believe that none of these enemies of listening were a problem until twenty years ago. Certainly drifting in one's own thoughts is a normal and reasonable - and old-fashioned - thing to do. This isn't criminal, it's common. Yes, it is a problem to work on, but it certainly isn't detrimental to mental health or relationships at large.

But what about taking on monkeys? I don't think this is a new problem. There will always be micromanagers and those who want to solve the world's problems all by themselves. They will think this is noble, until suddenly they are eaten up by stress and no one else in the world knows how to be a functioning, problem-solving member of society. Until, to Castro's point, there is no creativity in the world because there is only one person thinking. A monolithic frame of mind. 

Obviously, one person thinking for everyone in the entire world is (hopefully) impossible, but it is scary to see how close we have come to this. Just look at American politics. We are entrenched in a two party system, and you need to somehow fit your beliefs into this framework, or your vote is perceived useless because the independent candidate isn't really going to win. (Or you’ll jeopardize the party by splitting votes; I’m looking at you, Still-Bernie fans). Or, there are people like Trump, who disrupt party agendas under a guise of a fresh viewpoint, but actually do so by being a traditional leader - no collaboration, no listening, and no real creativity. 

Do we no longer listen because we are worried about our voices being drowned? Are we malformed because American individualism must always prevail? Have we twisted a natural inclination into a problematic ideological narrative?

Do people no longer play sports or something that we have lost all sense of what teamwork is? A team, collaboration, is nothing - is impossible - without the strengths of the individual. Working together should never compromise a person's gifts or talents but rather form them towards a greater good, while learning some social virtues all the while. 

Teams aren't just for kids. Adults need them too.

Maybe the National Mall would prove more useful as a soccer field; perhaps then we will have some real leaders in Washington, and beyond.