Attentive Listening
How do you feel when you aren’t seen or heard? For instance, you share a meaningful issue that falls on deaf ears. In this article, I encourage you to improve your listening awareness. In doing so, you are more likely to get the listening support you need as well as become the listener you want.
How do you want to be heard?
Before venting an important issue, ask yourself a few powerful questions. First, “Does this person have the listening capacity to hear me out?” You may decide it’s not the right person to share a meaningful issue. If so, it’s certainly ok to find someone who will be present with you. Second, “What listening level can I expect from this person?” If you identify a person as a part-time listener, you may choose to keep personal topics light. Last, “Is this an optimal time and place to get the attentiveness I need?” Sometimes it’s not the person isn’t willing to listen, but the environment is not conducive to attentive listening.
By asking yourself a few key questions, you learn the places and people to turn to when you need attentive support. Also, you learn to craft your language to get the listening support you need.
Strive for attentive listening
Leaders understand to create growth, you must focus. For many of us, sharpening attentiveness is an area to focus on to develop leadership listening skills. Even better, go for empathetic listening! It may open doors you never considered.
For this article, I encourage you to consider Stephen Covey’s five levels of listening theory.
Five Levels of Listening
- Ignoring listening
- Pretending listening
- Selective listening
- Attentive listening
- Empathetic listening
Ignoring involves no effort to listen. Conversely, pretending to listen gives the appearance someone is listening.
Can you sense someone who ignores or pretends to listen, for instance? For example, it’s difficult to meet outcomes in a meeting unless participants are listening to clarify fine details. Productively, everyone involved must establish a common ground of mutual attentiveness. Check out a video I shared on the importance of attentive listening in meetings.
Selective listening is attending to selected parts of the message. In other words, selective listening involves selective attentiveness. A selective level of listening may result in intense frustration, disagreement, misunderstanding, and potentially, conflict. To reinforce points in the discussion that were misconstrued, selective listeners are known to use the phrase, “Oh, but you said…,” to reinforce their argument.
Attentive listening is the ideal listening level to strive for in most workplaces. Showing attentiveness is to be fully engaged in attention to detail. It’s a sign of respect, especially in time-sensitive moments, to show active listening. Furthermore, being attentive clarifies misunderstandings as they occur.
Empathetic listening is understanding someone’s point of view. Engaging your mind, heart, and senses involves asking questions to understand deeper layers of a person’s experiences. Listening empathetically helps you build trust, mutual respect, connections, and relationships. While empathy is the ideal gold standard of listening, some people lack empathy.
Be the listener you want
Take a good look in the mirror. What level of listener are you? You can’t get the support needed if you aren’t that person for others. For this reason, it’s important to develop your attentiveness to become the listener you want.
Do you struggle with listening attentively? Do you need tips to communicate better with managers, co-workers, or family? To schedule a coaching call, click here
