I attended a two-day “Leaders in London” Conference at the end of last year. The line up of speakers was impressive. Tuesday started with Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev, Professor Marvin Zonis, Alan Leighton, Terence Conran, Lou Gerstner, Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard and many others, including the one and only Bill Clinton (live via Satellite).
On the Art of Listening and Leadership (Something I have been trying to learn for the last 25 years) I want to share with you the lesson and the leadership by example that Bill Clinton taught us in the conference on the art of listening.
After he made his speech, he started taking questions. I asked one too, the President and the audience were amused by my name especially after assuring them that “I am the nice one”.
Among the attendees there was a lady who didn’t speak good English and earlier in the day when she was given the microphone to ask a question, she went on and on for 5 minutes and no one understood what she was trying to ask or say and we all laughed. When it came to Clinton question time, she raised her hand again to ask a question, the moderator warned her to be quick and to the point.
The lady took the Microphone and started to ramble on and on. Again it seemed that no one understood what she was saying, people started to laugh, boo, clap their hands, asking for her to stop.
After few minutes, the moderator cut her microphone off and gave the question time to someone else. People were cheering his decision to move on after all no one wanted to be embarrassed in front off the great president.
While all this saga was taking place and all of us laughing and disapproving of this behaviour from the lady, only one person was NOT laughing -Bill Clinton. In fact he leaned forward to the camera and put his hand on his ears and focused intently and seriously.
Thirty minutes passed while he answered few other questions from the audience and when the time came to close, he said very politely, “Wait Rene, before you close... Earlier on a lady asked me a long question and I would like to talk about that for a minute.”
The hall dropped into silence, he continued by saying, in fact the lady made a very important point. He went on to summarise her point which was about families in the developing world (none of the audience knew that), and he asked to be allowed to answer this important question, which he himself put together from her scattered little stories before we the audience interrupted and stopped her.
Now I began to understand at the hands of a guru of leadership what he was trying to teach by his actions on the Art of Listening.
When we JUDGE anyone or anything, we stop listening. It seems as if the act of judgment triggers some chemicals in our ears that physically stop us from listening. There seem to be no other solution to world problems but the forgotten art of listening and stopping judgment before we listen to what others want to say. Prejudgment seems to be the mother of all sins on this planet.
This is what I learned that day and I hope it stays with me for ever. This was also an impressive performance by a world leader who is not only very intelligence but also listens very seriously to what people are saying. This incident taught me a lot about leadership and what listening is all about.
About the Author
Osama El-Kadi is a negotiation expert & motivational speaker. Specializes in utilising Sun Tzu Art of War in a unique and advanced strategic negotiation consulting, seminars, workshops and training for sales and buying organisations worldwide.
Negotiation Strategies and the Art of War.
Negotiation Expert & Motivational Speaker.
Born 1955 in Manchester England Osama graduated in 1978 with a BSC in Economics followed by an MA in International Business from Alexandria University.
Osama El-Kadi's career spans 28 years within UK based blue chip corporate companies. Starting from a Computer Analyst Programmer at NCR, to Chief Architect for worldwide banking systems, to Sales Director for CAI Europe, to General Manager Technology at the House of Fraser Group (including Harrods), to managing group procurement functions for the Automobile Association (the AA) through to his most recent position as Chief Procurement Officer in the Centrica Plc group of companies.
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