Listening to lead a nation

Listening skills are important to one self. While I think that I am a good listener, I am not. The people rated their leaders as poor listeners in researches conducted. A lot of leaders are good at hearing but poor at listening. Among them, there are a few good listeners. This explained the reasons why sometimes your constituency representative or wakil rakyat couldn't deliver what you wanted. The leaders have to decide to listen and this requires massive involvement and actions.

A poor listener can learn and used what he learned to improve their listening skills. The listener's level of quality listening can rise one day after another if he work on it sincerely to improve the lives of his people. This skill is also practical for a manager to his employees. It is not easy to hear someone telling you that he has just completed his Listening Course after attending a weekly one hour class for a year. It is quite easy to hear someone tell you that he gone through a reading class, a writing class or a speaking class.

There are basically three mode of listening, namely, Informative Listening, Evaluative Listening and Empathetic Listening. In Informative Listening, the listener always catch the key point in a message, digest what is the speaker's intention, identify the speaker's details, and give a second thought even if the topics are familiar. Taking place usually in formal or semi-formal communication environments, lectures, meetings, seminars and conferences including teleconferencing or video-conferencing make up of most informative listening.

Evaluative Listening has a goal of making a decision. How well you listen would decide whether the action you are going to take is fruitful or not. This listening skills is as asset to a politician or wakil rakyat. The skills could turn their political campaigning successful when the election is near. If you would like to be an evaluative-listener, judge only on the idea, do not be emotional, be clear what the is the speaker's message, diagnose the speaker's fact and foresee whether the speaker do his homework. Do not forget that compromising is a tool.

Empathetic Listening is an ability to listen not just the words spoken, but a listening of the speaker's feelings. An empathetic listener does not evaluate the speaker but make the speaker at easy and adopt calmness and patience. Without offering direction to the speaker, a nonverbal feedback by the listener could provide positive motivation. Understanding by restating the speaker's idea helps him or her to think through what has been said.

In the recent United States of America's presidential election, Barrack Obama is re-elected as a President. Do you think that only Obama has good listening skills ? Obama won fairly with the equally good listening skills of the people of America. Obama is elected by the people and for the people. A food for thought; Would a person win an election if all people of in his constituency have good listening skills ?