How can coaches’ use of radical listening generate teachers’ reflection and increase a sense of teachers’ empowerment? Examine some of the obstacles to and strategies for radical listening from the work of Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener and Christian Van Nieuwerburgh authors of, “Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection.” As coaches, when we resist the urge to jump in with comparisons, advice, or quick fixes—and instead, lean into radical listening—we communicate trust, respect, and belief in the teacher’s capacity.
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Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00.220] – Steve [Intro]
Welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. As instructional coaches and school leaders, you are tasked with guiding continuous teacher growth to create student success. This podcast looks to support you with strategies from experienced guests, as well as my own insights that I’ve gathered over the years. I’m thrilled to have you with us. Thanks for tuning in.
[00:00:29.950] – Steve
Radical Listening in Coaching. In the December Insights from Growth International, Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener and Christian Van Nieuwerburgh shared the need for stepping beyond active listening to radical listening. They describe how active listening, as it was presented by Carl Rogers in the ’70s, might be insufficient for coaches today. In a world of digital distractions and a sense of poverty of time, coaches may find even paraphrasing and questioning unattainable. They suggested the need to build on active listening skills to develop radical listening. Radical listening is a deeply intentional and focused form of listening, where the listener suspends judgment, silences internal responses, and fully attends to the speaker’s words, emotions, and underlying needs. It requires setting aside the urge to fix, solve, or offer advice immediately, and instead to create space for the speaker to feel heard, understood, and valued.
[00:01:46.700] – Steve
Radical listening involves curiosity, empathy, and a commitment to understanding both what is said and what has been unsaid. That’s a pretty powerful task, setting aside my own biases and judgments to fully understand the speaker’s perspective. A thought that I use in my approach to coaching is that I look not to share what I’m thinking until I understand what the coachee is thinking. Knowing that I’m not clearly understanding the coachee’s thinking pushes me to probe more and listen more closely. Van Nieuwerburgh and Biswas-Diener identified six common obstacles to deep radical thinking. They call them comparing, competing, misreading, advising, priority status, and lastly, time poverty. As I go through those, can you sense that any of these obstacles are happening to you? The first one, they called comparing. In comparing, the coach thinks or says to him or herself, that experience has also happened to me. Now, I think that’s pretty easy to happen because I have a desire to show connectedness and understanding. In order to do that, we jump in and communicate that comparison. “I understand. I’ve been there, too.” But even when we have been there, the comment can be dismissive to the coachee.
[00:03:31.620] – Steve
As an example, a teacher shares his struggles with classroom management, and a coach might respond, “Oh, I remember when I had the same issue with my class a few years back. It took me quite a while to figure out that I had to set and model expectations.” Now, the reality is you never had the students that this teacher has, and you never had them at this time and in this space that that teacher has. This shift in conversation from the teacher’s experience to the coach’s experience, risk invalidating the teacher’s emotions and thus missing an opportunity to truly understand their unique politics. Consider replacing the comparison with your story with the phrase, “Tell me more.” A second obstacle, which steps beyond comparing, is competing. “I’ve had it even worse than you’re having it.” A teacher talks about feeling overwhelmed by curriculum changes, and the coach might reply, I dealt with that chaos when I taught during a switch to new state standards. Or the coach might say, I’m hearing that from several other teachers. Again, while this may be an attempt on the coach’s part to suggest the problem is common, stated too early, it again can make the teacher feel dismissed or even belittled as their concerns are overshadowed by the story of others, or that the problem that they’re seeing as challenging actually isn’t all that challenging.
[00:05:13.600] – Steve
A third obstacle to consider is called mind reading. Before the teacher even finishes explaining their challenge, the coach interrupts with, “I know what you’re saying. Your students aren’t persisting because they’re in a hurry to get it correct and get their desired grade.” Now, the coach’s assumption shuts down the teacher’s opportunity to articulate their own understanding of the situation. That’s an important reflection that the teacher needs. It likely also prevents the coach from gaining more important insights as the teacher’s reflection is critical to empowerment that should be an outcome of the coaching process. Another obstacle that they identified is advising. Advising occurs when the coach’s thinking jumps to, “I figured out how to solve that problem.” After hearing only part of a teacher’s concerns about differentiating instruction, a coach might quickly suggest, I always found that by grouping students with mixed ability levels, I was more successful. This premature advice can make the teacher feel rushed or unheard, reducing their sense of ownership over the solution. I want you to listen in for a moment as Biswas-Diener defines the importance of coaching having a high desire to ask.
[00:06:46.020] – Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener
I believe that a desire to ask is one of the central tenets of coaching. The coaching mindset is really the belief that the person can figure it out for themselves, even if that means they have to go ask other people how to do it, then they’re just capable, they have resources. And I do think that leaders are about resourcing people, giving them the space and support they need to figure it out and perform well and do a good job. So I think the desire to ask people and then meet them where they are rather than rush in and think, well, I know how to do this. I used to be in your role, therefore I’m going to tell you, just I’m trying to figure out, well, how much of this do you know? What is it that you don’t need help with because you’ve got it? Where do you feel shakier? How can we support you on that?
[00:07:42.480] – Steve
Another obstacle is priority status. This is where the coach ends up appearing as an expert. Consider a teacher sharing her struggles with required district assessments, and the coach responds with, “I’ve coached a lot of teachers who have had that struggle. I have several strategies that can help.” Priority status reinforces a hierarchical dynamic where the coach’s expertise is prioritized over the teacher’s insights. Potentially, stifling authentic dialog and thus stifling the teacher’s sense of being an empowered problem solver. In the book, “The Impact Cycle,” Jim Knight cautions that when we take on a helper mindset, we can easily shift toward a savior complex, where the coach takes on the responsibility for the teacher improvement rather than empowering the teacher to take ownership of their own learning. The helper role can unintentionally strip teachers of agency and autonomy and lead to compliance-based coaching, where teachers implement strategies because they’re told to rather than because they’ve internalized their own reasons for making a change. The last obstacle that was mentioned by the authors was time poverty. Time poverty is a sense on the coach’s part that I just don’t have the time to listen. As the teacher starts to explain a parent communication issue that is troubling her, the coach’s nonverbals might say, “This really isn’t all that important.”
[00:09:32.410] – Steve
The teacher becomes discouraged from sharing fully, and thus trust is eroded, and that makes future conversations less productive. Time poverty also interferes with the teacher’s participation in the coaching process. The teachers hurry up, give me a suggestion so that I can get back to the list of have to get dones in my classroom interferes with the coach spending enough time asking and taking that empowering approach. In their book, Radical Listening, The Art of True Connection, Van Nieuwerburgh and Biswas-Diener introduced six core competencies which foster deeper connections and understanding. These are the antidotes to the obstacles that I’ve discussed. The first one, noticing, being fully present and attentive to both verbal and nonverbal cues, quieting, calming one’s internal dialog to focus entirely on the speaker, accepting, embracing the speaker’s perspective without judgment, acknowledging, recognizing and validating the speaker’s feelings and viewpoints, questioning, asking thoughtful questions to deepen understanding, and lastly, interjecting, offering insights or reflections at the appropriate moments to enhance the conversation. Here’s how those items might sound in a sample coach-teacher dialog. Coach: Hey, great to connect. What have you been exploring or pondering? Teacher: Honestly, I’m feeling pretty stuck with student engagement.
[00:11:36.760] – Steve
It feels like no matter how much energy I put in, a chunk of the class just zones out. I’ve tried some group work and projects, but it’s not clicking. Coach: That sounds frustrating. You’ve tried different strategies, several strategies, and yet the same students remain disengaged. Teacher: Yeah, it’s making me question if I’m even reaching them. I keep thinking I’m missing something, but I can’t figure out what it is. Coach: I can hear how important it is for you to reach every student. Can you tell me more about what you know and notice with the disengaged students? Are there patterns? Teacher: Now that you ask, I think it’s more during independent task. When I’m guiding them, they’re okay, but when I step back, that’s when some drift off. Coach: when the direct support is reduced, some students lose focus. What do you think might be going on for them during that time. Teacher. Maybe they don’t feel confident working on their own, or maybe they’re not clear on what’s expected. Coach. Those are valuable possibilities to explore. I’m wondering if it would be valuable for me to observe a transition or two from directed to independent task with the particular students as a focus.
[00:13:11.550] – Steve
I might be able to gather some observations and add them to your exploration. Teacher. Yeah, I’m sure you’ll hear and see things that I’m not with my attention being on the whole class. Coach. Great. Let me know the students who should be my focus and the best times for those observation. I always look forward to learning about students and ways to reach them. Thanks for the opportunity. Now, in that example, my intent was for the dialog to illustrate there being no comparing, competing, or mind reading. Hopefully, the coach is staying focused on the teacher’s unique experience. Key word there, unique experience. Experience. There’s no premature advising. Instead of giving immediate strategies, the coach facilitates reflection and ownership. And hopefully, time is valued. There wasn’t a rush. Hopefully, the coach’s body language and pacing would show patience and presence. Radical listening isn’t easy, especially in fast-paced environments where time feels tight and pressures are high. But it is one of the most powerful tools we have to foster meaningful professional growth by creating for teachers time to think, reflect, begin, Even uncovering their own solutions. As coaches, when we resist the urge to jump in with comparisons, advice, or quick fixes, and instead lean When we lean into radical listening, we communicate trust, respect, and belief in the teacher’s capacity.
[00:15:09.910] – Steve
Consider pulling one element of the radical listening strategies and consciously practicing it in a few of your upcoming coaching conversations. Thanks for tuning in.
[00:15:25.390] – Steve [Outro]
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.
