How to enhance listening skills?

Introduction

Listening skills can be defined as the ability of a person to interpret, respond, and receive in a proper manner in return to non-verbal and spoken messages. For maintaining effective communication good listening skills are important. Several components of listening skills can be found like active listening, emotional intelligence, non-verbal communication, and feedback. All these requirements are necessary for communication to be plausible and understandable to other people. The process of interpretation and the receiving of messages in communication are dependent upon good listening skills. In this report, the strategies that are required for the enhancement of listening skills have been taken up. The role played by emotions in the improvement of listening skills has also been discussed in the report. 

How emotions play an important role in improving listening skills

Emotions play an important role in improving listening skills as they influence the way individuals perceive as well as respond to the speaker.  For instance, listening to someone with an open mind and empathy result in a better understanding of the speaker's viewpoint can be considered best (Drigas & Papoutsi, 2019). On the other negative emotions including anger, frustration, and fear can result in misinterpretation of the information. The emotions such as empathy, patience, self-awareness, and open-mindedness play a key role in enhancing listening skills. Listening to the speaker with empathy help in creating positive connections and result in a better understanding of the information. It allows individuals to be more attentive, supportive, and engaged while listening to the speaker.  

On the other hand, being open-minded helps in gaining new ideas as well as perspectives. It further reduces the bias thinking or making any assumption based on own viewpoint. Patience is the most important role in enhancing the listening skill of the individual (Reed et al., 2023). This can help an individual to understand the complex message of the speaker or when the speaker finds difficulty in expressing it. Enhancing the skill of patience can help an individual to be more focused and attentive to the speaker. Self-awareness can help individuals to identify the factors that obstruct active listening. Based on these factors, individuals can take action to improve their listening skills.

Further, listening to an individual with a positive attitude can motivate the speaker to express their opinions effectively. A positive attitude can also help in resolving the conflict that can occur while communicating. Positive emotions can increase respect for the speaker's opinions and help in developing better relationships.  Emotions also play an important role in improving the memory retention ability of the individual. For instance, an individual can better retain the information of the speaker. Positive emotions also reduce biased opinions based on own judgment of a certain topic. The emotions such as excitement and joy within the individual can increase interest in the speaker's opinion. 

Importance of listening skills

Communication in both personal and professional contexts requires effective listening skills. Individuals' ability to understand is improved by their listening abilities. Understanding the other person's wants, worries, and desires at the time of conversation is made possible by doing this. The ability to listen facilitates information gathering and also provides suggestions for queries that are both specific and clarifying. Understanding their perspectives is possible as a result. The ability to listen effectively aids in removing any concerns or misunderstandings, as well as aiding in the improvement of comprehension (Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016). In addition to providing more contexts for understanding, listening skills also aid in demonstrating empathy to others.

Good skills in listening help to maintain and build good relationships with others. Good listening skills help to validate the experiences of others and that help to make the feeling to hear to opposite people.  These things enhance the equality within the relationships and also make the relationships more strong.  This helps to understand the perspectives of others and their emotions also and also helps to show empathy and which makes the relationship good.  

Listening skills also have the capacity for conflict resolution and that helps people to maintain a good bond within their relationships. Misunderstanding occurs when people do not listen to the opinions and perspective of other, whereas good or active listening skill helps people to understand the opinion or perspective of others. This quality of listening skills reduces or helps to avoid the chances of misunderstanding among people (Kohpeima Jahromi et al., 2016).

From the organizational perspective, the listening skill is important because this improves the productivity of the organization by improving the leadership in the organization. Listening skill is important because they help to improve trust among groups or individuals. The good listening skill also limits judgments.  At the time of providing the feedback the listening skill also helps the individuals as well. So all over listening skills plays an important role in the personal as well as professional lives of people. 

Strategies for improving listening skills

Improving listening is the most valuable skill which will provide benefit to individuals and will eventually help in enhancing communication skills (HBRE, 2023). The first common strategy that should be used by the individual to enhance listening skills includes becoming more attentive as this will aim in providing attention to the speaker and will also help in avoiding distraction or multitasking. Being attentive can automatically create more interest in the minds of the listener.

Even if there is an interruption in the process of communication, active listening skills can help in remembering the speech that was taking place earlier. Practicing active listening and focusing on what the individual is saying can be taken up. Body language and maintaining eye contact can also show that the person is listening attentively. Being attentive and avoidance in any form of interruption must be reduced when practicing listening skills. 

The listener should have some amount of empathy and this will eventually involve the situation where the listener needs to understand the people's perspectives. This empathy will help in building relationships. The most important thing that should be avoided is judgment and this should be avoided rather the main focus will be to understand the perspectives.

The next important thing that should be done is to practice listening skills and this will happen by actively listening to others at work, and in public areas. Another important strategy that might be used is by avoiding judgment and this will happen only with the help of avoiding the judging of the speaker and thereby focusing on the main perspectives. This is very much crucial as these will strategies will help people to improve their listening skills.

There should be proper eye-to-eye contact between the speaker and listener. This will help the speaker to make sure that the listener is listing what is been said and thus there will be proper communication between the two people. Listening skills should be present in every individual and this will involve staying focused, and patient, remaining empathetic, and showing interest. This will help the listener to listen to what is been said by the speaker.   

Conclusion

It can be concluded that a person's ability to listen is crucial in all areas of their life, according to the information previously presented. In many facets of our lives, such as intimate partnerships, professional interactions, and academic endeavors, listening skills are crucial. In order to listen well, one must comprehend what is being said as well as take into account the speaker's viewpoint, and offer pertinent criticism. Understanding other people's perspectives is made possible by having good listening abilities. Emotions are a significant factor in listening skills, according to the study. Throughout the study, it was also explored the various benefits of listening skills.  The study has also discussed the specific strategies that help to improve the listening skills of people and make the people good or active listeners.

References

Drigas, A., & Papoutsi, C. (2019). Emotional intelligence as an important asset for HR in organizations: Leaders and employees. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning (IJAC), 12(1), 58. 

Gilakjani, A. P., & Sabouri, N. B. (2016). The significance of listening comprehension in English language teaching. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(8), 16–70. 

HBRE. (2023). Improve listening skills. Harvard Business Publishing Education. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from 

Kohpeima Jahromi, V., Tabatabaee, S. S., Esmaeili Abdar, Z., & Rajabi, M. (2016). Active listening: The key of successful communication in hospital managers. Electronic Physician, 8(3), 2123–2128.  

Reed, S. C., Berrett-Abebe, J., & Bender, M. (2023). Narrative discussions to support Social Work Competence. Social Work Education, 1–13.