Are you really listening?

Most management writers these days encourage leaders to be more participative and collaborative in their decision making. Gone are the days of the top-down, hierarchical organization of the past they say (but then they contradict themselves by making heroes out of highly autocratic leaders like Steve Jobs).
Our view is that business is not a democracy. Decision making by committee is a recipe for mediocrity.  “Leaders must lead” and that means making clear decisions.  You are not a politician, and this is not a popularity contest.  You are paid to make the good decisions that are in the best long-term interests of the company.  However, we recommend that in order to make good decisions, it is highly desirable to solicit a variety of different viewpoints and opinions before making your decision.

Peter Drucker in his timeless book The Effective Executive said that effective leaders create dissension and disagreement rather than promote consensus.  In fact, he recommended that you should not make a decision unless there is disagreement first.  If everyone agrees at the outset you should tell them to go away and come back with some counter viewpoints. “Groupthink” – where everyone in a company (sometimes even in a whole industry) thinks the same - is a dangerous pitfall to guard against.  ”If everyone is thinking the same, then someone isn’t thinking”

As a leader you need to have the confidence to surround yourself with people who are willing to disagree with you, and demonstrate that you willing to hear what they have to say.

You may not like hearing criticism, or opinions that are different to yours, but you must ask people to tell you what they really think, so you get to see things from a variety of angles.  Introverts are unlikely to speak up to you, so you need to find a way to get their opinion on the table as well.

Recent research shows that motivation, job performance, and morale increase when employees have the opportunity to contribute their concerns and ideas.  That does not mean that you need to please everybody (you can’t) but you need to show that you are willing to listen.

The study also shows that there is a consequence to giving your employees a voice: The leader must listen.  If you pay lip service to listening, and have no intention of seriously considering their ideas – your staff tend to stop offering input and get increasingly frustrated and dysfunctional in their jobs.

Conversely, employees who think their leaders do pay attention tend to speak up more often, and get along better with one another, improving the organization’s functioning as a whole.

In summary, if you want to make good decisions; get input from many people – especially those with a variety of different viewpoints.  Then provide tangible evidence that you have heard them and seriously considered what they have to say.

Now do your job.  Go and make a good decision! 


Article Source: Results.com


Greg Longstaff
Business Development Consultant
Franchise Network Specialist
greg@salesmarket.co.nz
+64 9.307.7860