What is active listening? Skills and techniques to improve communication
If you’ve been struggling to follow conversations lately or found yourself asking others to repeat themselves, chances are your listening skills may be somewhat lacking. Improving our listening is a huge part of effective interpersonal communication at work and in our personal lives. But when we’re lending an ear, what can we do to ensure we’re fully present and engaged?
Active listening is a method we can use to improve participation in conversations. Anyone can passively listen to a conversation, but by actively involving ourselves with what’s being said, we can reap the true benefits of speech.
To help you out, we’ll run through what we mean by active listening, how it can benefit you, and how you can start to improve your own approach to listening to others.
Quick links
- What is active listening?
- Why is active listening important?
- How to use active listening – 3 active listening techniques
What is active listening?
Active listening is a way to receive information from another individual or group. We can do this by paying attention to the conversation, avoiding interruptions, and taking time and care to understand what the speaker is talking about.
The “active” part of active listening comes by drawing out details the speaker may not have otherwise mentioned. It’s a helpful skill that can benefit anyone looking to develop it, allowing the listener to truly understand what’s being said rather than what you want to hear or think you hear.
Whether it’s conversations, meetings or job interviews, active listening is crucial to build a rapport with who you’re conversing with. In these moments, we tend to spend a lot of time preoccupied with our thoughts rather than paying attention. Active listening shifts the focus from our inner monologue to what is being communicated, allowing us to pay full attention to our colleagues, bosses and interviewers.
Why is active listening important?
Avoiding misunderstandings & overcoming disagreements
Passive listening often leaves us in a position of misinterpretation. Beyond the simple mix-ups, the more serious misunderstandings have the potential to damage relationships. Active listening can also go a long way to disarm hostile moments. By being more active in our approach, we can defuse situations pre-emptively.
Builds stronger relationships
It’s always disheartening when someone is not paying attention to what you’re saying. It’s also no secret that people like it when they know they’re being listened to and understood.
Active listening helps to instil greater trust between the speaker and the listener; the speaker is likely to be more transparent with the listener if they know they’re lending an understanding ear.
Improved productivity
In workplace contexts, passive listening can be dangerous, leading us to miss out on key information and potentially damaging interpersonal relationships with our colleagues. Active listening helps to retain crucial information, which can improve performance when returning to duties.
How to use active listening – 3 active listening techniques
Non-verbal signs, like smiling and nodding your head, can show the speaker you understand, agree with them, or are happy about what’s being said, affirming that they’re being listened to. Mirroring the speaker can also be a great way to show that you’re listening. If the speaker is smiling, the conversation is probably light-hearted, so smiling will let the speaker know that you’re engaged.
A smile alongside eye contact can encourage a speaker by letting them know that your attention is on them. While it’s normal and encouraging to look at the speaker, make sure you’re not burning a hole through them with your glare.
While smiling and maintaining eye contact, be mindful of your posture. A lazy posture might communicate to the speaker that you’re not listening. Sit up straight and employ open body language to promote an inviting posture.
3 ways to improve your active listening skills
When someone is speaking, you can let them know that you’ve been actively listening by remembering points that the speaker has made and asking relevant questions. This shouldn’t feel like an interview, and you shouldn’t be asking anything that’s already been answered because this can understandably annoy the speaker.
If you can’t think of any relevant questions, you can summarise what someone has said to demonstrate that you’ve been listening and perhaps even encourage the speaker to go into more detail and expand upon their answers.
A few small interjections of “I understand”, or “Mhm” can also show the speaker that you’re listening. Be sure not to go overboard, though, because too many interjections can come across as rude.
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