Active listening skills are essential for building healthy personal and professional relationships. We have often heard that communication is the key, but why so? Why so much stress on communication when it comes to keeping a good personal as well as professional relationship? Today in this blog, we are going to dive deep into this part and then the actual topic, active listening. We will try to understand communication, and then we will move towards other segments of it.
Understanding Communication
When it comes to the generic definition, communication simply means the process of exchanging information, ideas, thoughts, and emotions. There are many ways of doing this, either by speaking, writing, facial expressions, gestures, or by digital media; it is the foundation of how we interact, influence, or make sense to the world around. You can explore more about effective communication techniques through MindTools Communication Skills.
So, basically, it is a two-way process; on one side, there is a speaker, and on the other side, there is a listener, and both play a very crucial role in making any communication effective and fruitful.
Challenges to Good Communication
We already know there are two sides of communication now the question is on which side it is difficult to be, here is the catch, the speaker side is usually the desirable side on the other hand being on the listener side feels like a challenge, it is because this side is the receiver side and to be at the receiver end is like taking all those coming from the giver side irrespective of interest or not hence it takes efforts to be on the receiver side and also due to basic human tendency to give an eye or ear to those things which benefits us in anyway, may be financially or emotionally, if we talk about the emotional part it is usually human desire to be on the speaker side because everybody wants, they should have someone to listen, hence the things becomes quite uneasy if it comes to doing effective communication because our human instinct do not allow us to be a good listener rather it wants us to be the speaker and let the thoughts bust out in form of words. This is the main challenge that makes communication a waste of time, because if the listener’s side is not completely in, the speaker’s side will feel unheard and will stop expressing themselves, or maybe they will lose confidence and can not deliver completely what he/she wanted to, hence active listening is very important for communication to be fruitful.
What Are Active Listening Skills?
Active listening is not just about hearing words; it is about understanding the speaker’s emotions, which are not always put into words. It is simply about being empathetic towards the speaker and giving them enough space and attention so that they can feel heard and understood. It is a skill that can help you in any dimension of life, whether it is personal or professional.
Types of Active Listening
Reflective: In this, you listen to the speaker and then rephrase his/her sentence according to your understanding and improve clarity in the communication by making sure the same has been delivered as per the speaker’s intention. Best for personal chat.
Emphatic: In this type of listening, you listen not to understand the words, but to understand the emotions or feelings of the speaker, best for emotional support.
Critical: In this type of listening, we usually use our logic rather than emotion. This is mainly used to analyse and evaluate a situation or person, ideal for a professional set-up.
Appreciative: In this type of listening, we just enjoy listening and appreciate it, ideal for entertainment purposes.
Hindrances to Becoming an Active Listener
We need to understand that the listening is harder than it sound, I also used to believe that I am a good listener but the moment I started to looking into my listening ability I understood how many times I get zoned out, hence I tried to understand the possible reasons of facing challenges while listening, and I came up with these possible reasons which causes hindrance in becoming an active listener.
How to Improve Active Listening Skills
- Surroundings: The surroundings are very important because a noisy and crowded place may cause hindrance and make the communication a waste of time and energy, hence for proper communication, you need to make the setting like you are all in for active listening, for this, choosing a calm and quite place is good option and then putting away any types of distractions like phone, TV, speaker etc. This preparation will help you a lot and let you become a good listener, and the communication will be fruitful.
- Prejudgments and assumptions: Most of the time we have an opinion about someone which keeps coming whenever we communicate with them and as per that opinion we give interest to what they are saying, or maybe we just listen to them just for the name sake but in our mind we already have our assumptions regarding it which stops us from being a good listener because if we listen to someone with prior assumption, it is simply we are just trying to compare their words with our opinion it it matches then good if it does not we just be more avoidant or maybe defensive towards the words or sentence what the speaker is saying.
- Emotional reaction and Biases: Sometimes few people have this tendency to be bias towards a person or situation according to their taste, and this bias is clearly visible in almost all the situation either it is to be a good listener or take any decision their favour is always towards the one which goes properly with their belief system or maybe the one who sync nicely with their emotional ripple, hence to be a good listener we also need to keep a watch on our emotions because it can make the communication one sided, hence we need to think beyond our emotion and favouritism and focus on the speaker words with full intention of listening without judging.
Final Thoughts on Active Listening Skills
We have already understood how important the active listening is for a healthy communication, it will help you in both personal and professional life, it is not only about politeness, it is about building trust and understanding, hence whenever someone is speaking to you it is very important that you make him/her feel heard and understood, for this we do not need any fancy skills, we just need to cultivate open mindedness, enhance focus and presence and finally manage emotional response.
So, please start from today, and if you feel like you are the only one who feels distracted or anxious during any conversation, do not worry, even I was there a few months ago. What you have to do is just start with small steps. The basic and easiest thing you can start with is nodding and making eye contact if someone is talking to you. Here is the thing which need to be more cautious, do not try to exaggerate anything just to show yourself as an active listener because it will make things worse, hence listen with intention and then attention.
Emotional awareness and mindfulness practices discussed in Loving Kindness (Metta): Cultivate Compassion for Self and Others can also improve communication and empathy.