By Stu Whitley
Bio
This post is second in a three-part series.
In our relationships, as with our work, listening is absolutely fundamental to leadership and the discipline of effective communication. This includes the need to be alert for situations where cocking one’s ear to the rhythms of speech, as well as its content, will ensure better understanding. To do this in the context of conversation means to project positive non-verbal behaviour, to avoid being captured by words that we know can provoke negative emotions, by not interrupting, and by silently analyzing as dialogue proceeds.When witnesses testify, when judges speak, when communities express
concern, or when a victim expresses doubt, we sometimes—often—hear only
what we want to hear, and dismiss the rest. In doing so, we overlook
the lesson of one of the primal aboriginal teachings: to hear the most
important part of the message, it is necessary to hear with the eyes
and