What is Active Listening Skills?

Communicating should be a two way like give and take. Listening skills are an important component in communication as it reflects on how we speak.

Being a good listener gives us the opportunity to learn about people and the underlying messages and intentions. A good listener should be an active listener.

In fact, there are jobs in which listening skills are of utmost importance. Likewise, being a good listener is a great help to better understand and communicate with others.

Listening actively does not only help in understanding others as well as in building rapport with co-workers and friends. It is also important in grasping underlying meanings and resolving problems.

Otherwise, not listening actively would result to responding inappropriately and losing other’s trust. Likewise, it may also lead to spending money unnecessarily.

What Active Listeners Should Do?

A person who has good listening skills maintains eye contact and other indications that he or she is listening well. Likewise, while listening he or she should not interrupt the speaker or defers judgment.

By having good listening skills, the listener has the ability to ask questions appropriately after listening to the speaker. Thus, it is important to know how to develop better listening skills.

Steps in Developing Better Listening

1. Attitude adjustments – the first thing to do in order to achieve better listening skills is to change the way of thinking. That is why it is good to have an attitude adjustment that is not only important in listening alone but also in conversation. Pay attention on what the speaker says and never assume that you understand everything.

2. Noise reduction – In developing listening skills it is essential to reduce unnecessary noise. This means that you should listen in full attention and at the same time participation. In this sense, you should stop thinking while listening so that you can focus on what the speaker is saying. Likewise, you should also avoid anything that would hurdle better communication aside from the noise.

3. Emphatic listening – This mode of listening employs the ability of understanding the point of view of the speaker or other person. It does not necessarily mean agreeing to the speaker, but the important thing is that you understand the message of the speaker. You should also to the body language while communicating so that you can understand very well.

Moreover, good listening skills are important in self-improvement and success. Obviously, all of us want to feel being heard and understood while saying something. That is why regardless of the situation, it is necessary to employ good listening skills. In fact, if your job is business related most likely most of your time will be spent in speaking and listening.

Likewise, if you are involved in customer service, you need also to have effective listening skills in strengthening business relationship.

In the same manner, it is also necessary for every employee to have good listening skills in order to provide good customer service.

Additionally, good listening skills are a great way of building good relationships. It is because by listening to others, they perceive that they are important and feel respected. In today’s business world, good relationships and team cohesiveness can be achieved through listening skills.

Leading a team can be difficult if the leader does not know about listening skills. As a leader, it does not necessarily mean that you have to be the speaker all the time. Listening to your followers is the best way of helping them to improve and grow. As much as possible, you should listen very carefully to their needs and other things that obstruct them in being productive. In this way, you can help them in realizing the appropriate solution.

Showing them that you are willing to listen proves that you are also ready to support them. Thus, you can expect that your follower will respect you and consider you as a good leader. Good listening skills play a significant role in helping others resolving their problems.

The good thing about developing listening skills is that it helps you in learning what others said. You can also tackle listening barriers and at the same time encourages effective communication. Therefore, during conversation you should pay attention and stop talking.

By listening well, previous conversation can be easily remembered. It is also the appropriate way of connecting to people. Apparently, most relationship issues both at home and at work are associated to poor listening skills.

If you want to avoid misunderstandings, make sure to be a good listener so that you can also expect that others will give time paying attention to what you are saying. It is just a matter of giving and taking. As long as you are giving a chance to listen to other people, most likely you can receive the same respect as they will also give time listening to you.

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