Listening Skills
Sheri Khan
Maria Rita Inglieri
Rome Italy
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 39 No. 3, June-July 2003, p. 65.
"Listening"
is a word that takes on a new meaning when a mother becomes a Leader.
Some people understand and put into practice good listening skills more
easily than others. Some Applicants change visibly in this regard as
soon as they begin their applications. They begin to "think like
a Leader" and adjust their communication styles accordingly. Other
Applicants, however, may continue to participate in meetings in much
the same way as they did before. Sometimes a Leader will worry that
an Applicant has still not made the transition from interested mother
to Leader orientation because she continues to interrupt, not listening
to others when she participates in LLL Group and Leader Applicant meetings.
How can Leaders help to facilitate this move? How can we help a mother
to understand the importance of listening and being listened to?
The Group we
lead with has several Leader Applicants and prospective Applicants,
so we decided to do a series of enrichment meetings on the topic of
listening. At the first meeting we looked at the topic from a personal
point of view. We went around in a circle asking the women present to
speak about how it felt to not be listened to, and then, in a second
round, asking how it felt to be listened to, encouraging people to think
of specific instances that had occurred in the recent past. It was really
interesting: the examples people came up with were varied, but the feelings
of anger and frustration were very similar when they felt they hadn’t
been listened to. It was also surprising that no one had to go further
back than a week to find examples. This brought home to all the importance
of listening—a simple, and frequently unused, skill.
At the second
meeting we discussed listening when we answer telephone calls. We spoke
about listening to understand the real question, when to ask questions
and when to give information, using several examples of calls (without
identifying information) that we’d had in the last couple of months.
In our first example, a mother calls and asks for pumping information
because she is leaving her three-month-old to go off for a week with
her husband. Using this example and others we discussed the following:
- How do you listen to a
mother who says that?
- What do you tell her?
- Do you give her the information
she has requested and hang up, or can you say something else?
- Can you tell her she shouldn’t
do it?
- Is there anything that
the Leader is obliged to communicate?
The meeting
produced some strong and unexpected reactions, both regarding our role
as Leaders and personal feelings about respect for the ideas and opinions
of others in all situations.
Editor’s
note: The Leader Accreditation Department offers a bias exercise, which
helps Applicants think about which topics provoke strong reactions for
them. Awareness of these topics helps the Applicant to consider and
plan how she might react and communicate in a respectful way, opening
up the lines of communication.
The third meeting
was dedicated to yet another aspect of listening to mothers: questions
of ethics and responsibility. We asked the participants the following
three questions:
- When a Leader listens
to a mother, what are her responsibilities?
- What does professional
behavior entail?
- How can we ensure that
we present a positive picture of LLL?
The discussion
included the following issues (others may come up for you):
- Respect for the mother’s
choices;
- Respect for confidentiality
(for example, with whom can we communicate regarding the information
that the mother has given us and how?);
- Referring the mother to
health care professionals;
- Helping the mother to
dialogue with her health care professional;
- Other ethical issues (for
example, when the mother’s doctor gives her inaccurate information,
how can we communicate this to her?).
We had a very
interesting discussion on how to listen, including understanding what
the mother wanted and sharing information that was useful to her. A
lot of the discussion centered around helping the mother to communicate
with her doctor, and we used the article "Coaching for More Effective
Communication with Your Doctor" by Pat Kufeldt, Leaven, October-November
2000, which can be found on the LLLI Web site at www.lalecheleague.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVOctNov00p92.html).
Sheri Khan
has been a Leader for 18 years and is Coordinator for Leader Accreditation
for Italy and editor of their member's newsletter, Da mamma a mamma.
She has three sons, Irfan (20), Irshad (18), and Kamaal (9). Maria Rita
Inglieri has been Sheri’s co-Leader for the Central Rome Group
since she was accredited just over a year ago. She has two sons, Andrea
(4) and Giovanni (1). Deb Roberts is the Contributing Editor for this
column..
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:48 UTC 2007.
