A Leader’s Guide to Active Listening in Defensive Moments
Leading involves being at the forefront of change; as we all know, change can be difficult, stimulating resistance, criticism, and sometimes conflict. This is especially true when sharing new ideas and innovations that threaten to disrupt the status quo. We’ve all been there: You are in a meeting speaking up about something you believe should be changed and improved in your organization. While sharing your ideas and aspirations with your senior leadership team, a few of your colleagues negatively react to your words and begin to critique your work. In these situations, the sting and stress of disagreement and criticism can lead to natural human reactions. You may start to respond physically: Your chest tightens, and your breathing becomes shallow. As your body responds to the stimulus of feeling attacked, how do you ground yourself? How do you deal with the stress of having a conversation in those moments?
Learning to Listen
As Aristotle said, “Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” Leaders do not have the luxury of “doing nothing.” Exceptional organizational leaders must listen when their employees, colleagues, and constituents raise concerns or react negatively. Throughout my career, I’ve noticed that one of the quickest ways to ruin effective leadership is not knowing how to listen. Leaders spend endless amounts of time learning to make decisions, build teams, assess the competition, and even communicate, but a disproportionately trivial amount of time learning to listen. And yet, when you ask employees what they wish their leaders did more often or better—it’s listening effectively.
Some of the best leaders—the ones who are innovative and creative—are curious and open to a wide range of conversations. Successful CEOs who are effective listening leaders include Indra Nooyi, former CEO at PepsiCo, current Board of Directors member at Amazon; Kevin Johnson, CEO at Starbucks; and Angela Ahrendts, former Senior Vice President at Apple.1 They are all very good at using what they learn when they listen. They have a mindset—I call it a Bravable Mindset—that allows them to approach seasons of change with courage while leveraging—and sometimes improving—their natural capabilities with changing information to make the most of the moment.
When I am in intense discussions with people, particularly when I know that the conversation may be difficult or challenging, I set myself up for successful conversation before, during, and afterwards to ensure that I am open and listening to glean valuable information and direction for the next steps.
Setting Yourself Up for Success
When I suspect I will have a dynamic and possibly challenging conversation, I prefer to be very aware of my emotions and stress level about the topic both before and during the discussion. Traditional mindfulness techniques work well, like focusing on my breathing. My goal is to increase my ability to hear what is said by being self-aware rather than self-conscious.
When you are self-aware, you are noting your emotions and thoughts as they come to you in the moment, and you are using them to help you make observations and decisions about the next steps. You are not internalizing the dialogue and can be present. But if you become self-conscious, you assign meaning to what is being said and determine how it impacts you. You feel judged, angry, confused, frustrated, or any range of emotions. Very often, you also experience the physical manifestations of stress.
I identify any self-conscious thoughts by asking myself questions like: What am I taking personally? Why am I responding this way? What am I misinterpreting? Your answers will help you be more self-aware so you can refine your observations, thoughts, and questions to address and deal with the conflict.
During the Conversation
When I am actually in intense discussions with people—who may be arguing with, complaining to, or even yelling at me—I focus less on what I want to say and more on how I can understand and react to what I’m hearing. I use what I call the Bravable Inquiry Method which includes being mindful, present, and engaged through active listening. The Bravable Inquiry Method turns the cacophony of conversation, emotions, and even moments of dysfunction into clarifying questions. This process helps me separate myself from the criticism so I can judiciously evaluate the situation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson so eloquently writes in Emerson in His Journals: “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
First, make sure to check that you are mindful, using traditional mindfulness techniques. From time to time, consider your breathing and how much tension you’re holding in your chest, shoulders, and hands. Consciously let that tension go as the discussion progresses. A tense body is a tense mind. Again, focusing on my breath and/or naming my thoughts makes me much more self-aware of what I am thinking and feeling and less self-conscious.
If your environment is too stimulating, stressful, or overwhelming, excuse yourself and walk away if possible. It is too difficult to be present under those circumstances. When I am in this type of situation during a meeting or conversation, I simply explain that I want to process what is being said and productively contemplate the key points being made. It helps people know that they have been heard. But make sure that you do get back to them. And, by the way, this option also works if you are calm, but no one else is!
Second, be fully present. Shift to curiosity at the moment you begin to feel defensive and transform what may feel like a personal attack into useful data. You can ask yourself a series of questions to help you focus. What are they saying? How do I label and categorize it? What am I misinterpreting? I pay close attention to every piece of information that I can hear and see—the words being used, any non-verbal cues, emotions expressed, body language—you name it. All that information helps me formulate questions and shape ideas that support the next step of my inquiry.
Next, as you hear what is being said, you have an opportunity to respond. You want to still listen closely but actively engage. Begin by summarizing what you heard and asking the teammate you’re speaking with if you understand them correctly. You’d be amazed how often what someone says or writes is different than what they are actually attempting to communicate. Compare and contrast the various viewpoints being expressed. Ask more clarifying questions. By doing so, you are listening more effectively and moving an intense conversation forward by fueling your curiosity rather than your anger.
I repeat these steps until I have a clearer view of the issues and concerns people are sharing and a better understanding of their perspectives and viewpoints.
After the Conversation: Transforming the Stress of Critique into a Source of Innovation
We all interact with people with diverse perspectives, but leaders and decision-makers often encounter situations where their actions and ideas, emerging or otherwise, elicit adverse reactions and criticism. While criticism and disagreements can be stressful, it is essential to recognize that all conversation is also a vehicle for growth and innovation. In his book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, Adam Grant writes, “We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm our conclusions. Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker.”
Effective leaders must embrace conflict in a way that strengthens their organizations and their relationships, accepting and incorporating criticism where appropriate. To do that, you can ask yourself several questions about what you learned: What do I know now that I did not know before? What do I still not understand? What are my next steps to learn more and move forward? By actively listening and taking the time to reflect, leaders can gather and incorporate all the necessary information to address the problem effectively and in a constructive manner.
Equip Yourself for Success: Mapping a Path Forward
To help you navigate the struggle of conflict and critique without defensiveness, I created a Bravable Map decision tree that will help you determine your readiness to truly listen when you need to navigate stressful situations, handle criticism, and respond to critiques in a beneficial way. You can also use this decision tree as a debriefing tool to help assess your progress and grow your listening skills to turn a difficult and stressful situation into one that is healthy and productive.
For additional insights to employ in tandem with my Bravable Inquiry Method and Bravable Map, explore the Forbes article “How 10 High Achievers Handle Haters” on how leaders learn to stay motivated in the face of critics and naysayers.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over thousands of conversations with leaders all over the country is that the goal of leadership is not to be perfect. It’s to be brave. The brave ones are the ones who have hard conversations, express curiosity, and learn from others. Bravable leaders have the capability to listen and the vulnerability and courage to learn from what they hear. When we listen bravely as leaders, we create relationships, cultures, and companies that thrive into the future.
Download the Bravable Map decision tree
