Leaders often feel like they’re between a rock and a hard place. They want to create a workplace culture where people are motivated and engaged. They also must produce solid business results. They know engagement contributes to achieving business results over the long run. But they’re often too busy putting out fires to slow down and focus on the “soft skills.”

Does this sound familiar?

Unfortunately, most of us rarely do our best work over the long run when the focus is only on “getting it done.”

How to respond? Really listening to your people is a powerful but underrated practice. It doesn’t necessarily take more time than how you currently interact but it does require your full attention. The starting point is to recognize that multi-tasking is a myth. You can’t respond to emails and listen fully at the same time.

Once you have your full attention on the other person, you can tune into more than just the words. What’s the meaning under the surface? Why is this person talking to you? What’s at stake for them? It’s almost like tuning into a different radio frequency.

Once you’ve got an idea what’s going on, letting the person know you’ve really understood by paraphrasing can ensure that the person feels heard.

This one simple (but not easy) change in how you interact can work wonders for strengthening engagement over the long run and increase your business results.

If you’d like to add other powerful practices to your repertoire, consider kicking off 2017 by joining Cynthia Way, Stephanie Winters and me in the Leader as Coach Mastery Program. You will learn cutting edge, neuroscience-based leadership skills. You’ll also experience Stephanie’s live cello music integrated into our highly-regarded program in a wholly unique and creative way.

Join before December 23 and you will get a personal coaching session with Cynthia. Please spread the word!