Deeply Hearing and the Pursuit of Becoming Real

Leaders must be great listeners.  They must hear what is being said by those they lead, others in the organization, and key stake holders. When we talk about hearing someone, it means hearing them deeply. That means listening to the words, the thoughts, the feeling tones, the personal meaning, even the meaning that is below the conscious intent of the speaker. Our goal as a listener is to hear so deeply that we hear what may be unknown to the speaker or sender themselves.

 Since everything we do is communicating something to someone it means that we must have a heightened awareness of the receiver of the communication. What they see, hear, or experience is what you communicated whether intended or not.

 Equally important is the ability to really listen to yourself. To really know what is going on within yourself is a lifelong task and none of us is ever totally able to be comfortably close to knowing all that is going on within our own experience.  A leader must challenge themself to continually improve as a sender and receiver of communication.

Creative, active, sensitive, accurate, empathetic, nonjudgmental listening is very important in any relationship. The pursuit of it is the pursuit of becoming real. Permitting realness in yourself or to sense it or permit it in another is very satisfying. It is a rare moment when a deep realness in you meets a realness in another but unless it happens to you occasionally, you are not fully living as a human being.