“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking“
Bernard Baruch, financier and presidential adviser
Are you aware of the importance of the skill of active listening in your career? Individuals or groups engage in active listening to obtain information from each other.
Listening carefully to what the speaker is saying, not interrupting, and understanding what he or she is saying is part of this. By being active, you are able to garner details that might not otherwise be shared.
The ability to listen actively is a valuable skill for any worker. In conversations and meetings, you can get a more accurate understanding of what people are saying (and not just what you want to hear).
Active listening helps you build rapport with your interviewer during a job interview, since it allows you to demonstrate your interest.
What is active listening?
Employers value active listening as highly as critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The interviewer can see how effective your interpersonal skills are when you use active listening techniques during an interview.
Using active listening helps you focus on your prospective employer’s or interviewer’s needs rather than your own. An interview can be more relaxed if you use this technique.
Focusing your attention on the interviewer through active listening demonstrates:
- It interests you to know how the organization is doing and what challenges it faces
- Your willingness to assist them in resolving their work problems
- The fact that you’re a team player as opposed to a self-absorbed job candidate makes you stand out.
You shouldn’t interrupt, or worse, attempt to answer the question before you understand what the interviewer is asking.
The importance and benefits of Active Listening
You can improve many aspects of your life by establishing the habit of active listening.
Relationships
Active listening helps you understand a person’s perspective and respond empathically in all kinds of relationships.
In a relationship, an active listener understands that the conversation is more about your partner than it is about you. The importance of this is especially apparent when the partner is distressed.
It is important to be able to listen actively to a partner going through a difficult time. As a result, you can avoid offering opinions and solutions when the other person is really just looking for someone to hear them.
Work
It is particularly important to listen actively at work if you have a supervisory role or frequently interact with colleagues. It assists you in understanding problems and collaborating on solutions. Furthermore, it demonstrates your patience, a valuable asset in any work environment.
Social Situations
In order to develop relationships with new people, you should actively listen by reflecting, asking questions, seeking clarification, and watching body language. It is easy to initiate and maintain conversations when you are an empathic and active listener.
Here are some tips on how to become a better active listener
In order to become a better listener, you need to master five key active listening techniques:
1. Pay Attention
Be sure to acknowledge the speaker’s message and give him or her your undivided attention. Don’t forget that non-verbal communication also has a strong impact.
- Direct your attention to the speaker.
- Don’t let distracting thoughts distract you.
- Be careful not to prepare a rebuttal mentally!
- Don’t let environmental factors distract you.
- Pay attention” to the speaker’s body language.
2. You Must Show That You Are Listening
Make sure you show that you are engaged by using your body language and gestures.
- Occasionally nod your head.
- Make facial expressions and smile.
- Pose openly and with interest.
- In order for the speaker to continue, you should encourage him or her to do so by saying little words like yes, or “huh huh”.
3. Providing feedback
There are many things we can do to distort what we hear, such as applying filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs. In order to be a good listener, it is important for you to understand what is being said. You might need to reflect on what is said and ask questions in order to accomplish this.
- Use paraphrasing to summarize what has been said. A great way to reflect back is to say, “What I hear you saying sounds like… “.
- Clarify certain points by asking questions. ” Could you please clarify what you mean?” “Is that what you mean?”
- It is a good idea to summarize the speaker’s remarks periodically.
4. Don’t rush to judgment
There is no point in interrupting. In addition to frustrating the speaker, it limits full understanding of the message.
- Before asking questions, let the speaker finish each point.
- Keep your counterarguments to a minimum.
5. Provide appropriate responses
By actively listening, you can encourage respect and understanding between people. During this process, you are gaining information and perspective. By attacking or criticizing the speaker, you contribute nothing.
- Answer honestly, candidly, and openly.
- Respectfully express your opinions.
- Make sure you treat the other person the way they would like to be treated.
Relevant quotes & leaders
“I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.”
— Lee Iacocca, Chrysler Corporation
“To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It’s a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.”
Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University
“Of all the skills of leadership, listening is the most valuable — and one of the least understood. Most captains of industry listen only sometimes, and they remain ordinary leaders. But a few, the great ones, never stop listening. That’s how they get word before anyone else of unseen problems and opportunities.”
Peter Nulty, Fortune Magazine
“I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.”
Larry King, CNN
“To learn through listening, practice it naively and actively. Naively means that you listen openly, ready to learn something, as opposed to listening defensively, ready to rebut. Listening actively means you acknowledge what you heard and act accordingly.”
Betsy Sanders, Nordstrom
“You have to be willing sometimes to listen to some remarkable bad opinions. Because if you say to someone, ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard; get on out of here!’ — then you’ll never get anything out of that person again, and you might as well have a puppet on a string or a robot.”
John Bryan, Sarah Lee Corporation
“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”
M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled
“If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk.”
Robert Baden-Powell, Boy Scouts Association
“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”
Karl A. Menniger, psychiatrist
” Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.”
Andy Stanley-Founder and Senior pastor of North Point Ministries