Listening has never been a more important, if not the most important, leadership behavior, especially now that we have four generations in the workplace.
I was working with a group a few years ago, providing a job interviewing class.
Happened to be 50/50 older white men and young women of color. I asked them to define "loyalty." You may be able to guess what happened next. They worked individually, and the results were pretty consistent within the groups.
For the older guys (50s +), the answer was to the USA, their organization, supervisor, and so on. The young women, almost without exception, said, "me."
They got into it a bit about "That's wrong" until one of the young people addressed the older group with "We grew up in the world you created." Things got very quiet.
So. Leadership Listening Code (as I learned):
Make it SAFE for people to be candid without suffering for it.
Entertain MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES without judgment.
WAIT (Why Am I Talking) before weighing in.
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