Leading by Listening
Guest User
Mikaela Kiner writes, “Leaders often underestimate the impact they have on making sure all voices are heard. You may have a diverse team, but are conversations dominated by a few vocal members?” She goes on to share that if we don’t ensure everyone feels safe in sharing ideas, we can leave a lot of creativity and innovation unconsidered, which can impact our success.
Kiner offers four ideas to impact a more inclusive conversation with your teams:
Give people the floor. Be aware of folks who often interrupt others. This can make for incomplete thoughts being shared.
Make room for introverts. Introverts often need time to process and reflect and may not share if you don’t ask them for their ideas and input.
Address inappropriate comments. You don’t have to be unkind by shaming or blaming anyone, but as a leader you can set the tone of the conversation for the group.
Invite dissent. Good leaders invite disagreement. The more you normalize dissent, you will find you gather more honest input, feedback, and ideas.
For a more in depth look at these ideas check out the link to Kiner’s article.
Kiner, M. (2020, January 2). How good facilitation increases inclusion and belonging. Retrieved January 14, 2020, from https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2020/01/how-good-facilitation-increases-inclusion-and-belonging?utm_source=brief.