Today, communication is one of man’s most imperative skills, and communication depends happen the sense of hearing. Even when we are communicating by visual means, such as writing or typing, we are still using the language that most of us first learned by hearing before we were even out of the womb. Hearing can be defined as the ability which helps in the perception of sound through atmospheres that are being detected by the ear. This is a biological or physical process. Listening, though it may seem similar to hearing, is however, different in that it entails perceiving and understanding the message that was heard. Listening involves the use of a person’s sense of sight and hearing.
Effective listening, therefore, involves the process by which a person understands, interprets, and analyses the information received through hearing. It is an active process that is learned through time. Effective listening skills are not only useful in understanding verbal speech, but also enable a person to derive a conclusion from the speaker’s body language. The ability to listen is essential for success in all relationships. Effective listening skills involve a person paying full attention to the speaker, and having the ability to ignore all eternal distractions. Communicating and listening is very important in our daily life. The pie chart below shows the time people spend communicating.
There are three major levels of listening. First of all, level one, the Internal Listening. When a person listens at this level, they are actually listening to the sound of their own inner voice. That’s where their attention is. They may hear the words of the other person, but they are primarily aware of their own opinions, stories, and judgments of their ow...
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In a Nutshell, almost everyone sincerely believes that he or she listens effectively. Consequently, very few people think they need to develop their listening skills. But, in fact, listening effectively is something that very few of us can do. It's not because listening effectively is so difficult. Most of us have just never developed the habits that would make us effective listeners. Research has found that by listening effectively, you will get more information from the people you manage, you will increase others' trust in you, you will reduce conflict, you will better understand how to motivate others, and you will inspire a higher level of commitment in the people you manage.
Works Cited
(: Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001) , 2001)
(Steil, Lyman K., and Richard K. Bommelje. Listening Leaders, 2004)
Listening is an important skill that many people take for granted. Listening empathelicay means putting oneself in “someone else’s shoes”. Listening only to get information takes away much of what the speaker is saying, by being able to empathize with someone one is on the same wavelength. In this world, there exist many different cultures and subcultures.
The same goes for hearing and listening. They are two entirely different things but people believe that they are one and the same. Hearing is your physical ability to detect sounds like a car horn or a dog barking. “Listening requires you to concentrate on the verbal and nonverbal messages being sent and to determine the meaning of those messages” (Quintanilla, K., & Wahl, S., 2014, p. 51). To be an effective listener, a person must listen and not just hear. A good listener listens between the lines of the conversation. They are listening for meanings which are not put into spoken words by the speaker. They also look for nonverbal communication such as gestures, facial expression, and tone of voice of the speaker. Listening is very hard and the ways to become a good listener is to avoid falling victim of the barriers to listening. Some of the barriers of listening include external and internal noise. External noise can be anything audible such a...
The Importance of Listening for Professional and Personal Relationships Listening is essential for communication, yet is a skill in which most are lacking. Though we are listening constantly, knowing what to listen to requires an enormous amount of discipline and practice, which is vital for communicating effectively. Learning to listen will benefit all relationships from professional to personal and not being able to listen effectively can cause these relationships to deteriorate. “Indeed, although aware of the instrumentality of listening, even trained communicators often fail to listen correctly or at opportune times” (Cline, 2013). In order for all of areas of communication in an individual to flourish, listening must be emphasized.
Listening is critical in maintaining deep connections and relationships with other individuals. Effective listening includes areas of understanding, empathy, non-judgment, critical, deep and active listening. When Andrew introduces Margaret to his father, for example, Margaret fails to hear the relational messages spoken between the two. During this introduction, Margaret is only hearing the surface communication and failing to actively listen to the implied relationship.
A vital aspect of interpersonal communication is the style in which one listens. While every individual possesses their own preferred method of listening in communication, it can be enlightening to analyze our own strengths and weaknesses so as to maximize effectual communication. Within the confines of four main listening style categories, I have chosen those which best describe my own personal listening style.
Communication in all relationship can be successful when our listener get the message that we want to convey and it is not so much about what we want to say. Listening is a unique process because it involves psychological and voluntary process that goes beyond simply reacting to sounds. It includes understanding, analyzing, evaluating, and responding. As a human, we will use different listening styles, depending on our preferences and purposes. Listening styles refer to the different ways people listen and analyze the content of a conversation. Usually, these styles either have to do with the way listeners choose to receive the message or with how they analyze the message. Listening is very important because we listen in order to establish and communicate power. There are few types of listening that can be used in order to communicate effectively.
There is a big difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a physical ability that the ears receive feelings and transmit them to the brain while listening is a skill. Listening skills allow one to make sense of what another person is saying. In other words, listening skills let you to understand what someone is "talking about”. It requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences.
As a professional in today’s society, it is greatly important to be able to communicate effectively with other professionals, with clients, and with those that are encountered in daily living. In order to communicate in a proper manner, not only is talking and non-verbal communication, but a large aspect is the ability to listen. Listening is a vital task in order to build a relationship and find meaning in someone else’s words. In order to find this meaning one must follow the characteristics of active listening, face the challenges to listening, and reflect upon one’s own listening skills.
Listening is a skill that requires active, rather than passive, participation to advance shared understanding and minimise misinterpretation. Active listening strategies such as analysing and displaying non-verbal body language, clarifying meaning and accuracy, expressing understanding for the speaker’s feelings through empathy and moments of silence contribute to effective communication. These methods encourage the speaker to convey his or her thoughts and minimises misinterpretation between sender and receiver.
Listening is a big part of communicating well with others. Take time to carefully listen to what others are saying, and also take time to observe their nonverbal communications. A good listener does not interrupt the person while their talking. they make eye contact with the person speaking. they provide the speaker with their full attention, avoid unnecessary distractions, and try to understand the other persons point of view by being empathetic.
In all aspects in life effective listening plays an important role in our lives, both professionally and personally. As many of know from experience listening is never easy in fact it can be difficult to understand what is being said by the speaker. Because of laps in attention we tend to misunderstand some of the messages that are being relayed to us or disregard them altogether. Effective listening is important for receiving the correct feedback from those you’re speaking with and requires a focus that should be central to what is being said or what topic is being discussed.
Listening is a great skill, but most of us lack that one. The quality of listening differentiates between an average achiever and a successful human being. On an average, women speak 20,000 words in a day and men speak 13,000 words. However, the question is how many words we listen.
Those not thoroughly educated in communication tend to confuse the terms “hearing” and “listening.” Although they appear to mean the same thing, utilize the same body part, and are both required for functional communication, there is a great difference between these two actions. Hearing involves the perception of sound using the ears, while listening is based upon giving attention to the sound being perceived. Additionally, because these concepts are different, there are also several different ways of improving hearing and listening. Thus, there are several differences between these two concepts, and it is important to signify these differences in order to practice effective communication.
Listening is one of the most powerful tools of communication and is a process that is used to receive, convey a meaning, and respond to both verbal and nonverbal messages. It is what we choose to do and it requires more work than speaking. Oftentimes, people simply misunderstand the difference between listening and hearing. Hearing is a passive process that takes in sounds and noises and listening is what you choose to do. This selective process includes 5 phases that can be acquired for us to become effective listeners in the future. The 5 phases are attending, understanding, remembering, critically evaluating (listening), and responding. Once the 5 different areas are understood, we will become aware of what needs to change and how we can change them. This will also allow us to improve our listening skills in the workplace, school, at home, etc.
A skill, according the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability. The skill of listening is a skill that I believe everyone should have but most people lack. Many people do not realize that listening is not merely the act of hearing a sound but of paying close attention to what someone is saying and trying to understand the message that they are trying to relate to you. Most times people say they are listening when in all actuality they are merely hearing you but not even attempting to understand what is being spoken of. The advantages of being a good listener are vast. This skill can positively affect many parts of our everyday life and interaction with people. Nevertheless, it is a skilled that is overlooked in today’s unmindful society. The reason I believe that listening is of such importance is because nowadays people have developed the mentality of “every man for himself.” People are not concerned about their fellows anymore. We are only concerned about our own issues and problems. Listening is a skill that is acquired throughout a lifetime. It is an important virtue when it comes to communication.People should be taught from childhood the importance of learning how to listen. If we realized how much we would benefit from being good listeners, I believe that things would change. Lack of listening skills affects marriages, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and employees, foreign affairs, and the list goes on.