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Why effective listening is important
Strengths and weaknesses of communication skills
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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 an aspect of communication that vital the building of understanding and of a relationship between individuals. Listening can be an active
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As The Gift of Listening describes, “Opening one’s heart and listening at a deep level does not come easily and is rarely achieved simply by life experience” (Browning & Waite, 2010, p. 151) There are different aspects to being a good listener that are often difficult to achieve and lead to poor listening. One significant challenge to listening is the attention needed in order to actively listen to another person. Proper listening does not occur due to a passive process but instead it takes deliberate action and thought towards what a person in saying. Like previously stated, actively listening is achieved by sitting in a comfortable and open way and maintaining good eye contact. When a person does not exhibit these techniques good listening often does not occur. The challenge of utilizing different techniques in order to listen to others in a better way often gets blocked by barriers that make active listening unable to occur. In our society today one major barrier to listening is technology. In a casual setting, proper listening often doesn’t occur due to someone being tied to their cell phone. The millennial generation is often guilty of passively listening to others due to the mobile technology that is being used today. Many conversations occur without eye contact or full focus on what the other has to say and instead is spent staring at a …show more content…
While in high school I had to have very good listening skills while working within the choir, band, and in the theatre department. These different extracurricular activities had many in leadership positions where I often had to listen to what the director was telling me needed to happen and then I personally would have to go lead the group in doing so. Along with this I always the one people had to go to then with any concerns over what is going on. This led me to build a very strong listening skill to be able to mediate between the adults and students. As a nurse, I believe that listening is one of the largest aspects to the career. Without a nurse who listens properly, details are missed which can lead to harm upon the patient. When I work at my nursing home, my residents often compliment my communication skills because unlike most other workers, when cleaning people up and getting them ready for bed, I have full conversations with them. They are all very appreciative of me taking time out of my hectic work night in order to listen to how there day is going or on how their children are
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 an important part of education. In order to gain knowledge of a subject, a student must carefully listen to their mentor and
For example, James Van Fleet sheds light on the most effective strategies you can take and use in every one of your relationships with every communication and moment of interaction with others. For example, one of the huge components of good communication is active listening. Though "listening" by itself may seem mundane, Van Fleet presents real-life examples of how this works. One of the benefits of Conversation Power is the fact that you can listen to this audiobook repeatedly for different occasions.
Interpersonal listening: is the power to interpret things and to make healthy communication. A person that listens properly can transfer the accurate message to the specified person or to any receiver. If we listen properly we can effectively accomplish our assigned activities. Listening can prevent unnecessary mistakes. That is why people say, before you talk, think twice. If we listen to our family we can avoid some of the problems easily. If we listen to our friends, we canform good relationships. If we can listen to our groups, teams, and communities, we will be good leaders. When someone listens carefully until the speaker finishes, it helps the listener to get the whole message in order to answer any needed questions.There should be no worries of what to say after the speaker finished his /her speech. Sometimes being quiet is preferable. A good listener will make a good judgment.Listening skills also interoperates with verbal and non verbal communications which helps to receive messages sent by other people.
I further believe that by improving my listening skills I will have more success as a nurse and caregiver. Through improved communication with my patients and my co-workers I believe that my patients will feel more comfortable and less stressed with their care and caregivers. By better communication with the staff we will all have a more productive and harmonious workplace.
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.
...ong with those words. Listening means that your interested in learning more about what the people in your life making an effort to tell you and making the efforts needed in order to achieve your relationship goals together. However, it is very important to know all communication between partners has to be open, honest, non-judgmental and patient, if you are to succeed and maintaining a happy and healthy relationship.
Every business consists of a variety of communication activities such as listening, speaking, questioning, gathering and participating in small work groups. The listening skill is one of the most important aspects of communication process. It helps to understand and read the other person’s message. Effective listening skills create positive workplace relationships which influence our opinions and responsiveness to one another.
In terms of my listening strengths, I do a good job at making and maintaining eye contact with people. Specifically, this helps me stay focused and listen to what the person speaking is saying. I do not become distracted with external factors and pay attention to the person and the conversation. I think that eye contact is important because it gives a non-verbal message that you are listening and are hearing what is being said. This listening skill occurs daily; whether it be in a meeting where I am introduced or talking to a client, in class listening to my professor, or at home with my family.
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.
Effectively listening not only helps me to understand others but has allowed me to give appropriate feedback when needed. To listen is critical because there are certain instructions a supervisor may be delivering verbally and to be a good employee to understand what is being said helps improve performance as a worker. Effective listening in the work place has also allowed me to learn how to maintain eye contact while speaking to the employer or a co-worker. In all aspects eye contact is a way to show the speaker that my attention is focused on what he or she is saying and having an understanding of the context. According Joseph A. DeVito 2012), listening effectively requires the skills to be understood and communicate effectively. We can only foster aid to others only if we apply ourselves to effective
One of the main aspects in communicating is listening. An effective listener is one who, not only comprehends how the speaker feels but, also understands what they are stating. Building a strong connection between the speaker and the listener is one of the first steps to become a good listener. By building this connection speakers should first be in an environment with open minded listeners, it makes them feel more comfortable to state their opinions, feelings and ideas. Listeners should avoid being judgmental. The individual does not have to agree with the ideas, values or opinions of the speaker; however, to fully understand them, one must put aside their criticism. Speakers will believe that they can trust the listeners with their information when they know that they will not be judged. Miscommunication happens frequently, listene...
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.