What Is Active Listening? 7 Techniques

What’s so wonderful about taking the steps to become TheLivebeam.com/ a better listener is that you can engage with new ideas, perspectives, and opportunities that you may never have accessed previously. Withholding judgment, avoiding criticism, and approaching each conversation with an open mind can open many doors. As with any skill, you can improve active listening with practice and by approaching conversations with greater intentionality. Have you ever tried to have a serious conversation with somebody who obviously isn’t paying attention to you? Resist the urge to interrupt the person speaking or rush to judgment.

How To Deal With Difficult People

They get distracted by their own thoughts or by what’s going on around them, and they formulate their responses before the person who they’re talking to has finished speaking. Sara Viezzer is a Trainee Clinical Psychologist completing her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at King’s College London, based at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Bristol and the University of Padova, and has worked as an Assistant Psychologist across several NHS trusts in neuropsychology and health psychology. Miscommunication typically occurs when there is a mismatch between our understanding and the real meaning of the message, increasing the risk of problems and conflicts. Waiting for natural breaks in the conversation or pausing for a few seconds before speaking are some strategies that can help maintain positive interactions with others (Lunenburg, 2010). Alternatively, we can offer empathetic responses, such as “I understand this is causing frustration,” or reflect the speaker’s emotions.

It may even be useful to ask if you have it right before asking them to continue.

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If you are hoping to learn active listening to improve your workplace as a manager or a leader, these courses would be great for you. The goal of active listening is to create a safe environment for the individual to speak freely. Any of these responses may lead to defensiveness, distrust, or shutting down. When practicing active listening, practitioners should also self-monitor for judgments that might come up while the person is speaking.

This is because we typically think much faster than other people can speak, so our brains are often “whirring away” while they are talking. You’ll need to concentrate hard to stay focused on the person who’s speaking, and this can take a lot of effort. It also helps create a positive environment at work by encouraging open communication between colleagues and improving teams’ collaboration skills (Jonsdottir and Kristinsson, 2020). This, in turn, makes people more aware of the experiences that have been shared in the conversation and open to reflecting on alternative perspectives that can prompt a personal positive change.

Some Beginner Listening Exercises

• Working memory is a temporarily accessed storage space activated during high cognitive demand.
• Active listeners can communicate comprehension by paraphrasing what the speaker has said and asking clarifying questions.
• Empathy is demonstrated in active listening by the listener reflecting the thoughts and feelings of the speaker.
• When you listen to motivational speeches or inspirational music, you practice appreciative listening, which has the goal of helping you find enjoyment.
• While learning to communicate verbally is essential, being a good listener and using different types of listening skills is just as crucial for effective interpersonal communication.

Finally, take your listening skills to the next level with empathic listening. When appropriate, embrace silence and make an effort to see things from other people’s perspectives. It can be difficult not to formulate a response while the other person is talking.

At CCL, she conducts research and provides subject matter expertise in the areas of women and leadership, the gendered assessment of workplace helping behaviors, leader listening behaviors, and employee voice. Used in combination, these 6 active listening techniques are the keys in holding a coaching conversation. Have everyone create a list of non-verbal cues that listeners often display. Then, each player will act out one of the behaviors they identified while the other players decipher the meaning. This involves paying close attention, avoiding the urge to interrupt, and having the patience to learn what the speaker is saying. The unique thing about active listening is that the goal is to understand instead of just listening.

If you’re struggling to engage and become an active listener, you’re not alone. A coach can help you with these skills to benefit all areas of your life. Let’s say you’re driving to work listening to your favorite song on the radio. You’re using appreciative listening as you derive pleasure from actively immersing yourself in the musical experience. Appreciative listening can even benefit your health and well-being. For example, you’d use this type of listening when determining how to handle an unusual and complex client request.

Flexible furniture allows teachers to group students in different ways and create comfortable learning environments that lead to conversation. Lego walls and STEM-related items will encourage students to work collaboratively. Search for similar grants or funding opportunities in your district to make flexible seating accessible to all, supporting students’ speaking and listening skills by extension.

During the narration of a story, we can, for example, ask, “What happened next? We may also try to use a different intonation to express our interest or offer verbal prompts to elicit further reflection. It facilitates greater openness from the speaker, fostering feelings of safety and acceptance. Encouraging the speaker to provide further details on the topic of the conversation demonstrates our willingness to listen and dig deeper (Weger, Castle, and Emmett, 2010). It involves listening for words and phrases manifesting emotional states ranging from fear, lack of self-confidence, and boredom to cheerfulness and excitement.

When we evaluate something, we judge its credibility, completeness, and worth. Regarding credibility, we try to determine the degree to which we believe a speaker’s statements are correct or true. Regarding completeness, we try to “read between the lines” and evaluate the message in relation to what we know about the topic or situation being discussed. We evaluate the worth of a message by making a value judgment about whether we think the message or idea is good/bad, right/wrong, or desirable/undesirable. All these evaluating aspects require critical thinking skills, which we are not born with, but must develop over time through our personal and intellectual development.