Our image of leaders is often of someone giving orders or pontificating about what is supposed to happen.  Our leader monologue is always one way traffic and we may be laying down golden advice in English or our imperfect Japanese, but is it being received, understood, digested, accepted or employed?  In this modern, stressful, super busy life, we give the team a rapid burst from our content firehose and then we move on, because there is a lot for us to do.  Subsequently, we discover what we wanted wasn’t done at all or was done incorrectly or was taken off on a tangent we never imagined possible.    This is more common than it should be and we must be cautious when we are engaging in linear communication with our teams.  The content is often published rules and regulations, policies and procedural guidelines.  We may have developed Standard Operation Procedures which outline how things are supposed to be done.  We send out our memos, emails, text messages using various broadcast media. The good thing is it is written down,  so for Japanese team members, it is easier to absorb than rapid fire conversation. These are some typical ways we launch our missives into the void and we are never sure if people actually read, noted or understood what we were saying.   We are the boss right, so they have to take careful note of what we say, especially when we take the time to get key messages in front of everyone.  We are busy people, so this type of activity by its nature will be reserved for the most important content.  Therefore, everyone should know that communication hierarchy and treat these contributions carefully and thoughtfully.  Except they don’t always do that, do they.  Why?   Like their bosses, they are drowning in information, are subject to a constant bombardment of emails, messages on Teams or Slack, etc., updates on social media or from any of the other burdensome abominable conduits piling on the workload and filling up every minute of the day.  And it was in English.   So yes, we have to be articulate, concise and clear in our communication but we also have to use questions to clarify understanding and operate at the highest levels of listening capability.  Asking clarifying questions is relatively easy, but are we actually good listeners?  We assume we are, simply because we are too busy to pay any attention to how we listen. Let’s explore the five levels of listening and see how we stack up.   Ignore. We might be thinking, “I never ignore the team member when they are speaking”.   Is that true though?  The person may say something which triggers a strong thought in our mind. We are now completely diverted from what they are saying, to what we are thinking.  In effect, we are no longer paying any attention to them, because we are consumed by our own thoughts.  Effectively, we are ignoring them.   Pretend. In this case, we are polite, considerate and very boss like.  We are nodding our head and looking like we are concentrating, but we may not be fully taking in what we are being told.  Again, our mind may be busily crafting what we are going to say in our clever response to their points.  Or we may have been given an indication from the team member about something that interests them and we are getting ready to give them the benefit of our genius ideas and brilliant experiences.  If we hear something that sounds like resistance to our idea, that gets an instant counter response.  We are now mentally consumed with getting our evidence ready, so that we can go into an argument with them.  We want to sort them out, get them to fly right and get them to agree with our “correct” opinion.   Selective. Bosses have a highly tuned ability to hear agreement with their opinion and may miss key information.  Our listening skills are directed only to hear a “yes” or a “no” response regarding our ideas and nothing else from subordinates.   There may be key information attached to that “yes” or “no”, but we are certainly not