Styles Of Listening
Listening is one of the most underrated aspect of Effective Communication Skills. If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll probably agree that it requires mammoth effort to be listening 100% of the time. Occasionally, we’ll have thoughts crossing our minds, we could also be thinking of what to say next, or perhaps just distracted by things taking place in the surroundings.
Yet when we speak, we expect (or at least hope) that the other party would pay attention to what we’re saying. To understand how to be a better listener, it may help by first understanding the different forms of listening.
Competitive Listening
Competitive listening takes place when we are more interested to voice our opinion or thoughts instead of really listening to the content of another person. Under such circumstances, we’re probably waiting for an opportunity to speak, or coming up with rebuttals in our minds when something is being said.
Passive Listening
We hear the words that are spoken, though the message that is being interpreted may be totally different from the intended one. The problem with this form of listening is the lack of feedback, or verification. So the listener hears the message, interpretes it in his or her own way, and just accepts the message as it is. Of course, this may potentially lead to misunderstandings.
Active Listening
Active listening refers to the process where we are really interested in hearing what the other party is saying. We could also imagine ourselves in the shoes of the speaker to get more empathy. Some key elements of active listening include signs to show that we’re listening (such as nodding of head and eye contact), and feedback (which means restating or paraphrasing of our understanding and clarifying things).
Needless to say, active listening is the stage that we should aim to be at. To find out more about listening skills and how you can become a more effective communicator, do check out the ebook on Successful Communication with NLP and Enneagram.
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