This is a great 7 minute audio clip with Dan Goleman in conversation with George Kohlrieser of the IMD business school, about the importance of leaders to paying focused attention, in order to create a culture of sustained employee attention. 

Leadership mood appears to be contagious (see my blogpost here: http://bit.ly/1jCryqJ).

Dan blows apart the mistaken belief that leaders need to focus on what their teams are doing poorly, explaining how negative feedback triggers the amygdala and sabotages employees abilities to perform well. And George talks about how Leaders can deliver bad news from a positive and caring place, in order to allow their teams to hear and respond appropriately.

Click here for the 7 minute audio clip on the More than Sound website:
http://morethansound.net/2013/12/20/ep-108-kohlrieser-goleman-talk-focus/#.Uv0VO0J_uFF

George Kohlrieser is professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD, and author of "Hostage At The Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance"

In this HBR article, Dan Goleman describes how two year's worth of new research has been compiled and shows how a leader's mood drives the mood and behaviour of their teams. And that this is a primary factor affecting the bottom line. It seems that the mood of an organisation's head honcho literally spreads through the organisation like an electrical charge.

"High levels of emotional intelligence, our research showed, create climates in which information sharing, trust, healthy risk-taking, and learning flourish. Low levels of emotional intelligence create climates rife with fear and anxiety. Because tense or terrified employees can be very productive in the short term, their organizations may post good results, but they never last."

Goleman believes these results show that demonstrating Emotional Leadership (ie. optimistm, authenticity, positive energy) is a good Leader's main task. 

It's not easy for Leaders to sustain positivity, and coaching is a very supportive environment for fostering emotional Leadership.

Click here to read more about Leadership Coaching

And here to read the HBR article:
http://hbr.org/2001/12/primal-leadership-the-hidden-driver-of-great-performance/ar/1

Christine Riordan's blogpost for HBR neatly summarises how leaders can start to develop listening skills, and the benefits to their teams and organisations.

The three areas she identified where leaders fail to listen actively and empathically are

• Taking control, directing the conversation, focusing on their reply rather than the person speaking 
• Becoming distracted, reacting too quickly and not allowing time to hear what is being communicated
• Allowing their egos to get in the way, competing or multi-tasking (ie. reading their emails)

... Sound familiar?

The behaviours associated with empathic listening in the article are

• Recognising verbal and non-verbal cues (facial expression, voice tone, body language), acknowledging emotional content
• Processing skilfully, understanding and following the train of the conversation (summarising, remembering)
• Responding, appropriate responses, questions, head nods and acknowledging agreement

Most crucial of all is that leaders follow up on the points raised, and Christine Riordan highlights the importance of demonstrating that people have been heard through follow up meetings, memos and incorporating changes.

The positive benefits of empathic listening she identified are building trust, allowing others to air their feelings, sharing information and promoting collaboration in problem-solving.

Read the full post here:
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/three-ways-leaders-can-listen-with-more-empathy/