Listening Skills Are Key to Leadership

Listening skills are important in management and in developing leadership skills because managers and administrators must rely on information as it is relayed from their staff, co-workers and colleagues. One research study frames the importance of listening skills in this way: "The average individual spends from 42 to 60 percent of daily communication time listening...Yet most people are inefficient listeners; they forget, ignore, or misunderstand up to 75 percent of what they hear..." (Lynott, 1998, para.5). That is a large percentage of information that is either forgotten or generally unheeded. In today's business climate where the sheer multitude of media and information sources has caused management's ability to focus on one topic to become fractured, refining one's listening skills can assist greatly in processing the knowledge that's being relayed in casual conversation, telephone conversation, boardroom meetings or back office tête-à-têtes.