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Leading Like a Monk: Learning to Listen Well

Leading Like a Monk: Learning to Listen Well

Last updated on: April 14, 2017 at 11:34 am by Greg Richardson

Leading Like a Monk: Learning to Listen Well 2017-04-14T11:34:52-08:00 Greg Richardson

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Listening Well is Intimate

Listening may be the most intimate thing we can do with another person without touching them.

Some people think “listening” is waiting for a person who is talking to take a breath so we can interrupt. They understand listening as an opportunity to think about what they want to say next.

Listening well is listening on a deep level. It is not merely hearing what someone says, but connecting with who they truly are.

Listening Well is an Intentional Relationship

When we listen well to someone it involves our entire selves: body, mind and spirit. It is a dance which combines being open, paying careful attention, and being our true selves.

As we learn to connect with other people, we become more aware of how to connect with ourselves in deeper ways. Learning to listen is understanding ourselves in new ways. It is beginning to understand all the truths of the world that are beyond words. Growing more comfortable and accepting of ourselves and of others, we learn to listen for the deeper truths.

It goes beyond being good at reading people, beyond accommodating them. Listening well is opening ourselves to the selves of others.

Being honest and open, especially with ourselves, is a prerequisite for listening well. It is impossible to pay attention and be open to someone else when false selves are distracting us.

If we cannot be open and pay attention to ourselves, how can we expect to listen to someone else?

Listening well includes letting go of all of the other things that distract us and opening ourselves to one person. We can only listen to one person at a time.

Leadership and Listening Well

We may think of leaders as people who get a lot of attention, who talk to groups, who are well organized. We might think that “I could never do that,” or are relieved that we are not asked!

Listening carefully can be challenging. There are almost always things to attract our attention. We live in a time when silence is scarce. Loud noises, music in the background, other conversations, sights and scents that demand our attention, the need for rest; all these things and more call our attention away from listening.

For me, the most distracting things come from within myself. Someone tells me something that triggers a memory, a strong feeling; I can relate to them well, or not at all. Something they say reminds me that I need to do something, call someone, go somewhere; I want to remember, but I also want to remain present to them.

Being Present

That is a lot of what listening is: it is being present to someone in the moment. It is, in many ways, the opposite of impatiently waiting for them to finish talking. Listening is not guiding them strategically to where I want them to go. Listening is about sharing my true self in the present.

We cannot listen well to what someone has said in the past, or to what they will be saying next. Listening well happens in the present. We are drawn into the awareness we live and listen in the present moment.

Listening is the first step on the path to becoming the leader you can be.

Everything Begins in Silence

Before the spark of creativity, before the flash of an idea, before inspiration strikes, before we begin working, we are in silence. Silence is where the ideas and inspiration come from.

I was not always comfortable with silence. Silence was something which needed to be filled with talking, or with music, or other random sounds. I am an extrovert, and felt the stimulation of sound gave me a boost of energy.

Sound took my attention away from my own sense of emptiness, my own lack of depth and interior life, my own sense of being lost. I did not listen, because the sound in my life gave me other things to which I could pay attention.

Benedict’s Listening

In his Rule, Benedict envisions and supports a way of life based in listening and silence. The first words in his Prologue are, “Listen Carefully.” He urges leaders to listen to everyone in the community. He encourages everyone to listen deeply, to listen “with the ear of your heart.” The days in Benedict’s community are filled with listening and silence. At night they observe the Great Silence.

Benedict is writing to people who are intentional about their interior lives, and who intend their communities to reflect those interior lives. Monks tend not to seek distractions or stimulation outside themselves. They recognize the depth and passion within themselves. Their focus is on strengthening their lives from the inside out.

As I began to develop contemplative practices, I came to recognize the power of silence. Silence is a source of rest and refreshment.

Silence is also the place where we can best listen: to ourselves and to other people.

Seeking Opportunities for Listening

One of the most striking aspects of New Camaldoli Hermitage is the silence. It is more than the absence of talking and other noise. When we spend time in silence there is no need to figure out what we are going to say to anyone. Layers of interior distractions can melt away.

It has been a challenge for me to appreciate silence and listening. I tend to be a focused person, and my initial approach to silence and listening was particularly focused. I translated “openness” into a hyper-vigilance, straining to hear the tiniest breath within myself. In many ways, I was avoiding being open by being so over-sensitive.

I thought silence was a struggle to catch everything; holding on, not letting go.

As we learn to listen well, we learn to appreciate the pauses, the silence between words. We learn to interpret all of the nonverbal ways we communicate who we truly are.

Who has listened well to you today?

When do you listen “with the ear of your heart?”

[Image by iantmcfarland]

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