Listen and be open to feedback.

The best way to learn about your own strengths and weaknesses is to ask the people who work for you to tell you. It takes a certain amount of humility and courage, but if you don’t ask, they’ll never tell. I have two questions I ask all my direct reports: What are the three most important things I do to contribute to the success of our business? What are the three most important things I could do to improve as a manager? It’s important to listen carefully to the answers you get and not to dismiss them out of hand.

Feedback is one of the most important tools a manager has. To be effective, however, it must be more than periodic performance appraisals. Feedback must be continuous and candid. Great managers believe that they and their employees share a common interest in maximizing the employee’s strengths and minimizing her weaknesses. They also understand that feedback is a two-way street: It isn’t just something the manager provides but something that the employee provides as well.

Even if you are a good listener, you have to be a great one in order to be a great manager. The good news is that just like any other skill, you can practice listening, and the more you do, the better you’ll get at it. Here are a few specific suggestions for improving your listening skills.

Listen for what isn’t said.

One of the most important things people convey without words is the impression that they are interested in what you have to say. You can often tell that a person isn’t listening by the signs of disengagement: looking around the room, fidgeting, and so on. But the absence of these signs doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is engaged, so it’s important to pay attention to the words being said:

1. Be aware and sensitive to your own listening habits. If you hate it when people talk to you with their eyes on their BlackBerrys or a stack of papers on their desk, then you’ll probably hate it when they do it to you. If you like to fill in silences with a lot of “uh-huh,” “I see,” “really?” then be aware that most people find this annoying.

2. Be aware of the cues you give others about whether or not you’re interested in what they’re saying. If you’re not really listening to someone, you’re likely to give off cues that you’re not listening.

3. Listen for what isn’t said. In addition to paying attention to the words being said, pay attention to the words that aren’t being said. What is the person not telling you? What is he or she leaving out? What is he or she leaving unsaid?

Listen for the feelings behind the words.

1. To do this, you have to be able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and imagine what you would be feeling if you were in his or her position.

2. Ask yourself: What would I be thinking and feeling if I were in his or her situation?

3. If you’re thinking about how the other person would react, then you’re listening for the feelings behind the words.

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  Photo by August de Richelieu.