Why is Active Listening So Important and how to be better?

Active Listening is an important soft skill to have in your toolkit and can help you in both your professional and your personal life. In particular, it can help you with your networking and relationship building.

Why Active Listening Is Important?

• Active listening can make you better at communicating and help makes sure the other person feels heard and understood (and consequently build your relationship with them).
• Active listening also helps you to understand people better. By listening to them you learn more about their motivations and what makes them tick and you get to see things from their perspective.
• Actively listening consistently to people helps them trust and be more open with you. This can lead to a better relationship with them and it also helps your relationship have a more solid foundation based on mutual trust.

How to Become a Better Active Listener

Active listening is a skill you can develop and improve. There are number of things that you can do to be a better listener.

01 Listen without interruption.

Active listening requires your full attention. Therefore it is important to listen without interruption or distractions. Allow the other person to finish what they want to say. Show you are listening through body language and leave verbal communication until they have finished.

02 Pause.

Pauses can be your friend. When the other person is done speaking, give them space – pause for a few seconds before you respond. This gives them space to make sure that they have finished what they want to say and gives you time to think about what you want to say next (since you have been actively listening to what the other person is saying and not listening to respond).

03 Ask questions.

After listening to the other person (or when starting the conversation) ask thoughtful and open questions. Asking the other person questions and giving them the opportunity to speak and be heard – helps them to feel more valued and engaged. Have some thought-provoking conversation starters in your tool kit.

04 Repeat.

Demonstrate that you have been actively listening and clarifying your understanding of what the other person has been saying by repeating or rephrasing what the other person has been saying.

05. Continue the conversation.

When you have hit on something that the other person is enthusiastic talking about or you have found common ground where the conversation flows more naturally. Let the conversation take it’s course and tie your thoughts/the conversation together with something that has previously been said and try to avoid jumping from topic to topic. Show that you are interested and invested in the topic at hand.