Practicing Deep Listening

In Chapter 5, “Practicing Deep Listening” Shane starts off sharing a very vulnerable story with us by recounting an occurrence where she “failed” to listen. This relatable account helps us understand that while our intentions may be pure, we can learn to be better listeners through intentional thoughts and practices.

Building relational capital, or the practice of listening and conveying authentic care and curiosity towards others, should be a goal for all educators, regardless of your current role. This allows you to not only be more genuine in your listening and responding but more importantly, it allows people to feel valued. Applying this practice over time helps accrue “deposits” into a person’s emotional bank account. As this emotional bank account becomes larger, leaders can soften the blow of a difficult conversation because of this established relationship.

This relational capital must be genuine and authentic because if it isn’t children and students alike can see right through it and cause more harm than good. Most of the time, educators and parents just want to feel heard. We are passionate about our own children and we are passionate about educating our students.

When we experience turmoil either as parents, or educators, we often want to vent our concerns. Recognizing this as a “Listening Leader” should serve as a call to action as to what steps will follow the conversations we have. At times, we will serve through deep listening, or allowing the person to empty their heart, while other times we are called to strategic listening, or “creating mental space to lead to more thoughtful action”.

Shane directs us to Deep Listening Stances, the first being “Attention to Nonverbal Cues”. This, in particular, intrigued me because of the amount of “conversations” that happen via email and text nowadays. The tone of voice and nonverbal cues (such as facial expressions, body language, eye contact, breathing patterns, and physical space) account for 93% of communication, while spoken words are only 7%.

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When it comes to nonverbal communication, we are concerned about the “how things are said”. This becomes extremely difficult when our primary source of communication is through screens. So much is left up to interpretation. My thinking prompts tend to sound a little something like this: “What did the sender mean by that?”; “That was your perception?” or “Wow, I really need to seek clarification on their concerns!” By contrast, when conversations happen in person, and the nonverbal cues are “seen”, we can better respond, be a better listener and appropriately respond.

For anyone who is familiar with Dr. Stephan Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, Habit 5 is about “Seeking First to Understand, Then to be Understood”. This highlights the importance of really listening to the speaker and to process their words in conjunction with their actions. All too often, we listen only to respond, in other words, as someone is speaking with us, at some point our brain switches from listening to quickly responding. This listening to respond creates a disconnect and definitely doesn’t lead to creating deposits in an emotional tank due to a lack of authentic care and curiosity for the speaker.

In Deep Listening Stance 2: Mature Empathy, Shane discusses active listening, or paraphrasing what the speaker has said, which also entails “deriving accurate meaning from what we hear, while validation calms the speaker’s amygdala and activating the emotional reward of feeling seen, heard and understood." Remember that amygdala we discussed back in Chapter 2? We are making some huge connections here! How we approach listening opportunities speaks volumes to the speaker’s amygdala. Am I a listener who listens to respond, or a listener who asks clarifying conversations and seeks to truly understand the thoughts of the speaker? Am I a listener who responds with a solution or do I challenge the speaker to gain confidence in their abilities to solve a problem for themselves?

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Deep Listening Stance 3: Affirmation, allow us to see that creating a positive environment and continued relational capital growth allows the space for growth and feedback. Safir states that “by naming the positive, we begin to open up cognitive space for new learning." This is why my next steps as an instructional coach will be the weekly check-in so that I can continue to build relationships in my building (by noticing the positive) and create a space for a little friendly push towards personal growth. Although teachers come to me frequently because I am a safe place for being honest and transparent, I am learning to be a better listener. I will use the affirmation stems offered in this chapter; I hope to spur my teachers on for growth in their instructional practices.

Thinking back to Shane’s very transparent account with the teacher who approached her regarding the PD disconnect the staff was experiencing, I can conjure up the feelings that she must have felt. I would imagine there was a sense of defensiveness because what we do is so personal and feels like a direct reflection of our identity. Our jobs are so much more than a job; every action we perform is out of positive intent and out of the love of the people we serve, so to feel like we have made an “incorrect” move feels raw.

Often, when we are in a similar situation, we automatically go into an amygdala hijack and shut down. However, she created a space to use the listening skills she has shared in this book. She could have chosen to remain in the listening to respond mind frame, but instead, she chose to listen to be a part of the solution. I appreciate that Shane discusses how she would have changed this conversation if given the opportunity and reflects on how she would do it differently now, but what I love is that she decided to take action and listen to her staff. She addressed their concerns, which I am sure made a huge deposit in the relational capital with her staff.

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