By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you focus more on your listening skills. Reading time: 1:46

Listening is the most important skill of a leader, writes Perry Smith in his book Rules & Tools For Leaders.

Listening is so important that our sense of hearing is the first of our senses to fully function: just 23 weeks after conception, according to the Mayo Clinic. Then the human fetus is just 5.5 inches long and weighs 7 ounces!

And listening is so important that our sense of hearing is the last to die. That’s why Hospice advises family members never to assume that the dying person cannot hear. In fact Hospice says family members should direct their conversation to their dying family member even though he or she might not be able to verbally respond. They still hear you.

It’s revelatory that as you age your ears grow larger. Maybe that’s more than a subtle sign that we should listen even more fully as we age.

Click here to see previous post on Confessions of a Listener. Listening is so critical that Helen Keller who was deaf and blind always insisted that a sense of hearing was more important to keeping her in the “intellectual company of man.”

Today’s ImproveMINT

Nurture your listening skills to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

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