An announcement: This newsletter is changing its name and will become Your Career starting in May. Once a week, you’ll find the same quick tips you see here, plus links to more advice, news, job postings, and other resources to help you thrive in your faculty, staff, or administration job.
Academics are used to doing lots of talking, but administration requires learning how to listen well.
Practically every hiring profile for an administrative position calls for a “great listener.” Being able to hear and understand what people are saying — through not only their words but also their tone, manner, and body language — is a vital tool for succeeding in management jobs from department chair to president.
You may not have great listening skills when you join the leadership track, but they can be learned and improved. Here’s how:
- Good listening involves steeling yourself to silence. When people come to you with a problem, often the answer or solution is evident long before they have finished explaining the problem. Let them finish. Sometimes what you learn from a conversation or a public forum is less a set of facts and figures than a confirmation of emotions and feelings. Jump in too quickly, and you risk coming off as brusque, inattentive, and, yes, a poor listener.
- Identify key words and phrases to keep the conversation on track. Sometimes people come into your office prepared to articulate their concerns. More often, they veer off course into points that are tangential, unrelated, confused. In the face of a meandering conversation, you need to develop gentle interrogation skills. Use phrases such as “Let’s circle back to one thing you said” or “I see your point about X” to help the speakers focus on vital — to them — issues.
Continue reading: “Admin 101: How to Become a Better Listener,” by David D. Perlmutter
Thanks for reading The Quick Tip, a free newsletter from The Chronicle. Suggestions for what you’d like to see here? Other thoughts? Please email Denise K. Magner, a senior editor who compiles this newsletter, at denise.magner@chronicle.com.
