Leadership by Extreme Listening

By test -
Often when employees have issues related to work, Leaders offer advice and suggestions. Employees get intimidated by the suggestion and often tend to go by the boss' recommendations. The pitfall of this is that it results in a culture where employees shy away from taking decisions and keep escalating it to their bosses.

 In this McKinsey article, the author cites an example of a Leader who uses the principle of "Extreme Listening"  which results in creating a space for people to do their own best quality thinking. 

 The Leader used this technique with an employee who came to her with a problem. She kept asking "what else?" and kept nudging him for a solution. Within 5 minutes he solved the problem himself. 

 Very often Leaders try to prove their own competency in the eyes of their subordinate and feel that it is their duty to put in their 2 bits. But this may end up intimidating people instead of bringing out the best out of them.

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