Listening skill is often cited as the primary skill of a good Leader. And rightly so. However, what does it mean? For example, could it mean a leader is supposed to just listen to you while keeping his views unchanged? Or could it mean a leader should apply his mind to “correctly” filter the noise from your speaking while listening to you (beware, this leader is Cunning!)? Or could it mean a leader should always agree with you?
Precisely because only “listening” doesn’t help us in clarifying what it means, there needs to be another term coined. My teacher Eckhart Tolle calls it “Deep Listening”! What a nice word!
As a true leader, I need to have a “tolerance” (as my another teacher Anthony de Mello puts it), in a sense, a willingness to happily alter my own views about something while listening.
In cases, when I “pretend” to be listening to the other and after listening, ask him to do what I wanted him to do. I am being bossy! I am ignoring him. I am insulting him. I am not even listening, let alone Deep Listening.
In cases, when I am not willing to give even an “inch of space” for “accommodating” others’ views, I am in fact being condescending. I am not ‘Deep Listening’.
In other case, when I am busy in my own thinking, while listening, I am not able to offer the “space” to other’s thoughts/views. Because that space is already occupied by my own thoughts. I am not paying attention. Hence, in this case too, I am not ‘Deep Listening’.
In cases, while listening, when I am “attaching” my own “conditioned” interpretations to what other is speaking, I am not understanding the other person. I am, in fact, misconstruing others’ views, despite my mind being free of my own thoughts. I am being biased. I am misinterpreting the other’s view. It truly means that I am listening to myself. Hence, I am not ‘Deep Listening’.
It’s only when I actually connect with the other, as if he is me; it’s only when I merge with him leaving my identity behind; it’s only when I have a strong “willingness” to “understand him” and thereby “being of his help”; it’s only when I loose myself in what he says, that I can be ‘Deep Listening’!
And in ‘Deep Listening’, there is no me (I) to identify, there is no (my) mind to interpret, there’s actually no me(I) who is listening! Wait a minute. What? Then who is listening?
There’s God (Awareness) who is listening. Me (I) becomes just a faithful messenger, a postman who becomes a bridge between the communication that happens between the other person and the God! That’s when I can truly be said to be Aware! A leader who is Present!
Reinvent The Self! 