Let’s close out this eight-part series on Things Library Leaders Need to Do with an obvious one — but one that requires a bit more unpacking than it may typically get.

All of us understand (though not all of us have fully internalized) the vital importance of listening well as a library leader. And obviously, listening well means more than just not talking while the other person talks – it means really listening, with intention, and with the goal of understanding. Ultimately it means asking questions — maybe challenging ones sometimes, but more often questions designed to enhance and deepen your understanding of where the other person is coming from. But those questions shouldn’t come until you’ve shut up and listened.

Here’s the thing, though: we’re talking about three different skills, all of them essential for a leader:

1. Shutting up
2. Listening
3. Shutting up and listening

Let me explain why I say they’re three different skills, and why I think all of them are essential for library leaders.

First of all, you can shut up without listening. Shutting up can mean simply refusing to talk; or exercising all of your self-control to refrain from speaking even though you’re visibly dying to say something; or ignoring the person speaking. Make no mistake, being able to shut up in situations where it’s killing you not to say something can be a vital skill — in fact, it can save your job. But it’s not the same thing as shutting up and listening.

Second of all, you can listen without shutting up. Not simultaneously, of course — you really can’t be listening to someone at the same time you’re talking to them. But you can interject yourself into the other person’s monologue with clarifying questions or comments of your own, questions and comments that may illustrate clearly that you’re listening. Like shutting up without listening, listening without shutting up can be an entirely appropriate and even important approach in some situations. Sometimes asking clarifying questions or offering explicit expressions of support and care is vital for conveying your engagement with the person you’re listening to. But it’s not the same thing as shutting up and listening.

Shutting up and listening is a specific strategy. It implies not talking, but still making clear through body language and non-verbal engagement that you’re being fully attentive and making a good-faith effort to understand. It means exercising patience — not fidgety, “I’m resisting the overwhelming impulse to interrupt” patience, but rather the genuine recognition that you need more information before responding. Note-taking can be involved, though if you’re going to take notes while someone else is talking to you, it’s essential to pay especially close attention to your body language: the vital difference between “I’m writing this down because you’ve made valid and important point” and “I’m writing this down because I want to remember it later so I can beat you over the head with it” is conveyed entirely by facial expression at the moment you start writing.

As leaders in libraries, there are many situations in which a mastery of shutting up and listening is really essential. When an employee comes to you with a grievance about another employee (or, even more crucially, about you or your team), it’s essential not only that you shut up and listen, but that the person you’re hearing from be able to tell that you’re listening. When you hear one person’s report of malfeasance on the part of another, it’s essential not only that you listen to the reporter, but also to the person being reported on — and maybe bystanders and onlookers as well, and that each of them feel the full effect of your listening before you open your mouth (or put fingers to keyboard) to express an opinion on the situation. When someone is expressing concern about a library policy or practice, it’s essential that you make sure you really understand the concern and the context that created it before you try to put the concern to rest.

Of course, the important principle of shutting up and listening can — like any other good and important principle — be taken too far. I once worked in a library in which the faculty expressed a desire for a regular meeting in which they would talk to the leader but the leader would not be allowed to respond; instead, they were simply to shut up and listen. This, in my view, would represent an abuse of the principle, because it seems to me that such a meeting has the sole purpose of letting people yell at the leader. That might be fun for the employees, but it would be neither fair nor productive. Ultimately, the purpose of shutting up and listening is not to create space for monologue; it’s to make dialogue more productive and lead to better outcomes for everyone in the organization.