7 - Growing empathy with listening

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From the course by HEC Paris

Building Your Leadership Skills

949 ratings

HEC Paris

Building Your Leadership Skills

949 ratings

Course 1 of 4 in the Specialization Inspirational Leadership: Leading with Sense

When taking this course, you will raise your own self-awareness and gain self-confidence for a better leadership. You will discover a new approach to leadership based on trust and sense. The “Savoir-Relier” leadership, a new approach of leadership, taught to HEC MBA’s student and top executives, enables better team leadership and encourages relationships between people in spite of their differences of opinion. You will develop relational skills, self-knowledge and self-awareness on the way to unfold your own leadership style. You’ll learn the skills of The Savoir-Relier (SR) methodology for better connecting with yourself or others by going through the following 4 steps for successful leadership: Introspection, Conversation, Resilience and Responsibility toward Value Creation. In this first MOOC of the "Inspirational Leadership" specialization, you will practice the first two steps of the method for successful leadership: Introspection and Conversation. You will get to know yourself better during the Introspection part and get a chance to improve your communication skills in order to better interact with others. You will meet people like you who will share their stories and their experience with Savoir-Relier and why it is so inspiring for them in their life. Together, you’ll develop greater self-awareness by developing a leadership self-portrait and going through fun activities to increase your empathy and communication. Leaders from different organizations and participants of the HEC Paris Leadership Certificate, the program from which this course and specialization are inspired, will share with you their insights about what it takes to become a great leader and what they are able to achieve now that they apply The Savoir-Relier methodology. This course is part of the specialization “Inspirational Leadership: Leading with Sense”. In the next courses, you'll go through the second two steps of leadership: Resilience and Responsibility toward Value Creation.

From the lesson

Introspection to grow your self-awareness and sensibility

In this module, you will get to know yourself better thanks to introspection and measure the true value of this exercise.You will enter a sensory experience to develop your sensible skills, particularly increase your empathy and attention to others through fun built in exercises and quizzes like looking at a painting and sharing what you see, think and how you feel when focusing on it.You will understand the role of subjective thoughts in the way you interact with people and practice active listening.

6 - The ladder of inference4:55

7 - Growing empathy with listening7:34

Meet the Instructors

Valérie Gauthier
Associate Professor, HEC Paris

[MUSIC]

Active and sensible listening is an essential leadership skill that opens

the door to empathy.

Many of you have mentioned those skills in the inspiring leaders you described

earlier in the course.

But why are they so important?

Let's hear Apollonia on this question.

Apollonia will explain why empathy is an important leadership skill and

she will share examples of when it impacted her.

>> I believe empathy is important to understand and

be sensitive to other people's situation.

And maybe build a better answer than if you had been oblivious or

closed up to their context.

Of course, this always comes also at the risk of being too empathetic, and

then going beyond your level and zone of comfort,

which doesn't necessarily bring out the better solution.

Also listening too much to people's insights and

thoughts, drives you away from maybe a more original or genuine idea.

>> So now I'm going to ask you to engage in a role-play with

two other people you know.

It can be just anyone.

They don't need to know anything about the MOOC, and

you just need to explain to them the roles they are going to use.

But of course, it's even better if you can invite them to do the MOOC.

Each of you will play,

in turn, one of the three roles, the speaker, the listener, the observer.

Each role should last maximum seven minutes.

Please, make sure you respect the timing for efficiency.

As a speaker, you will share the story of a real,

recent, personal act of leadership.

As a listener, you will concentrate on what the speaker is saying,

with the possibility of asking questions and interacting.

As an observer, you will watch carefully the body language of both the speaker and

the listener, and

be ready to give feedback on what you see during the interaction.

The attitude, the hand gestures,

facial expression quantity of interaction between the speaker and the listener.

Once you've done your role-play, answer the questionnaire in your SR journal.

What role did you find most difficult?

And why?

And what conclusions do you draw?

Click the sentences that illustrate what you conclude and

add your own feedback if necessary.

If you found the speaker role to be the most difficult, because I am shy and

it is difficult for me to speak, because I couldn't find a topic at first.

Because I was concerned about sharing something personal with strangers.

Because I didn't feel like speaking.

If you find the listener role to be the most difficult,

because I wanted to interfere constantly.

Because what the speaker said reminded me of my own story of leadership acts.

Because my mind was wandering.

Because I couldn't focus.

And if you found the observer role to be the most difficult.

Because I felt excluded from the discussion.

Because I didn't know what to observe.

Because I was frustrated about not being able to speak.

Because I couldn't focus on both the speaker and the listener.

Because my mind was interfering with the story in my own thoughts.

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers in this exercise.

Here again, the ladder of inference can help you and

push you in improving your listening skills.

By using inquiring in a genuine way, asking questions that balance your

arguments so that advocacy is documented and based on data that is verified and

tested, you will become much more convincing in your discussions.

One last tip to improve your capacity to listen and enter dialogue, and

prepare you for our conversation is a practice of and versus but.

Indeed, you need to come at the yes but or in French [FOREIGN] syndrome.

I've spent 25 years of my life with a man who begins most of his sentences with

[FOREIGN] which literally means no, but it's not that.

Then continuing, sometimes by saying the same thing I was saying myself.

It's quite frustrating and hard to engage in positive dialogue.

The yes-but syndrome governs most

of our conversations because we feel we need to oppose to exist.

If you start paying attention to this,

you will realize how often people use but, as if but meant I exist.

I have ideas, too, you know?

Here, then, is a tip on effective discussion, dialogues, debates, or

conversations.

Let the person speak and respond when appropriate,

starting your next sentence with and, instead of yes, but.

Even if you're going to contradict the person's argument, you can do that.

It's perfectly fine to disagree, and

it's paramount that you express freely your own ideas.

Diverging or opposing views are essential to innovation and progress.

The elargism is part of what nourishes and enriches dialogues and debates.

Still, counter arguments are much more convincing when brought up in a positive

and subtle manner.

Because when you say and, you connect with a person and

your audience is on your side as allies, and not as enemies.

Let's see an example of such a role-play.

You can clearly identify the speaker, the listener, and the observer.

Observe how she behaves as a listener, and finally,

look how the observer is watching with her five primary senses,

both the speaker and listener behaviors.

You can play with this in your next friendly discussion and

interrupt every but to replace them by ands.

And you will be surprised at how this enlightens your relationships.

So after you've played this role-play, let's see how the ACE methodology applies.

About the A you have learned theory about the value of your senses, how your

emotions influence your perception of the world, and even your thoughts.

And you have a quiz to validate this.

About the E, you have experienced this with a few exercises,

such as the painting exercise and the active listening role-play.

About the C, is the critical thinking and open,

self-reflective mind you should have at every stage of your leadership journey.

To conclude this second module,

I have another question to test the intensity of your attention.

Can you tell how many times I have changed shirts in the different episodes

of the module?

And how many different shirts, or polos, have I worn since the beginning?

If you answer correctly, it means you are really paying close attention, otherwise,

you need to focus even more.

All these exercises have you warmed up for the next module where you will live a new

experience with a true authentic conversation out of your self-portrait.

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