How to be a better listener

11th of February 2022

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Listening is one of the most important skills that you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on new job effectiveness and on the quality of your relationships with others.

There are various reasons that we listen, these include listening to obtain information, listening to understand others, listening for enjoyment, and listening to learn. We do all of these with our friends, family and colleagues, but to support them effectively we need to make sure that we are listening properly.

How effectively do you listen?

We all listen on various different levels; I'm going to take you through each of these levels. As you read through, think about which level you listen, and which of these is familiar to you.

The first stage of listening that we have is IGNORING. This is when you are not really listening at all, you're not really making an effort to listen, and you're not really paying much attention to the person that's talking to you.

The second stage of listening is PRETENDING. We're not really listening, we're actually just saying things such as “ah”, “hmm”, to give the appearance that we are listening.  

Just take a moment to have a think about how you feel when somebody ignores or pretends to listen to you. Exactly! it doesn't feel great, it feels like the person is uninterested in that they can't be bothered to listen to what you have to say. This is really important to remember when we're having a conversation with someone so that we don't make them feel the same way.

The third stage of listening is SELECTIVE LISTENING. This is when we're only listening to parts of the conversation, there are areas that do pique our interest as that we do pay attention to these areas, but then when the other person is talking about things that we're not that interested in, our minds start to wonder and we think about other things.

The fourth style of listening is AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LISTENING. Many people think that this is a really good form of listening, the person is listening attentively, and they are focusing on what is being said. However, they are listening from their own point of view when they're projecting their own feelings onto the other person.

While you might think this shows that you are listening properly, it's not necessarily what the other person wants from you. It doesn't show that you're necessarily focused on the other person's point of view, what it shows is whilst they're talking, what you're thinking about is how you can respond to what they have said, therefore you're actually focusing on yourself and your own thoughts and your own feelings and experiences and projecting them on to somebody else.

The final stage we have is EMPHATIC LISTENING. Ultimately, this is where we should all aim to be. This is when the receiver listens with the intent of understanding the speaker as opposed to focusing on their own reply.  You're truly listening to what that person has to say, and you really have shown that you are understanding the speaker's words, intents, and feelings.

Just take a moment to pause and think about how you think you can let other people know that you are actively listening to them.

Repeating things back to the person demonstrating good body language and sharing eye contact to show that you're listening.

Asking them probing questions by the information they've given you and also agreeing with them not in your head, and showing that you really are listening to them.

As you can probably tell, passive listening is the highest form of listening and it gets the best response. When you're listening empathically to somebody, you are recognizing someone's emotional response and not just making judgments. When you do this, you're using your ears, your eyes, and your heart to understand the feelings, behaviours, and meanings behind what somebody communicates.

Your ears will tell you thoroughly what is being said, your eyes will tell you what the person is doing with their body when they are speaking.

For example, are they wringing their hands, looking down a floor or do the hold their head up, and do they look people in the eye?  Your heart will help you to think about how that person is feeling; are they upset or are they happy?

A key thing to remember is that a doctor gathers the symptoms before they prescribe, they don't just knock their head and say yes and not take into account what the other person has said, they don't say things like “when I had those symptoms I felt like these too”, instead they listen, they think about how the person is feeling and sort of body language they also have as well as what they're saying, and then they aim to understand what the person is saying before they diagnose the problem.

When you're dealing with your friends, family or colleagues, this is how you should be listening to them!

I’m not a professional on these things, I’m simply sharing my opinion based on research and years of experience. I do hope you finds this helpful!