Essay about Active Listening Strategies within Effective Communication

Active listening is the main key for understanding any kind of communication. Active listening means more than just hearing words. It means understanding what someone else is saying by making eye contact, body language and verbal responses.

Effective communication is way in which people communicate towards each other. There are wide ranges of ways that communication can take place for example one to one conversations, group conversations. This can either be informal or formal depending on the individual’s outcome. An example of effective communication that can take place in a health and social care setting is a hospital, for example a nurse and her colleague are talking about how much they enjoy their jobs, and this is a form of effective communication.

Effective communication is not just about speaking and listening. It is also about watching and feeling. Our body language and tone of voice actually communicate more strongly than the words we use. So, listening effectively involves tuning in closely to the other person’s body language and tone of voice as well as their words.

In this assignment I am going to explain about the role of the effective communication

Listening is a skill that requires active, rather than passive, participation to advance shared understanding and minimise misinterpretation. Lang, Floyd and Beine (2000) describe active listening as a skill that ‘focuses on attending to patients’ clues, ie, utterances and/or behaviors that are not explicit but may have special meaning and suggest unshared ideas, concerns, and expectations’. This essay will discuss how 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 silence contribute to effective communication by encouraging the speaker to convey his or her thoughts, building trust and

Active listening is also an integral part in the receipt of a message. Part of a listener’s responsibility is to provide feedback, making communication a two-person affair, and as important, senders must seek out and attend to the feedback that is offered by their receivers (Cheesebro, O’Connor, Rios, 2010). By actively listening to the sender, we can translate and respond to the message appropriately. Through active listening, we can develop respect and trust with the sender, increase productivity, maintain a “cooler head”, increased confidence and remembering the important information that the sender is trying to convey to us (Cheesebro, O’Connor, Rios, 2010). It is believed that we only take in 50% of what we are listening to at any given time so it is crucial that in communication, we extend to each other the same courtesy as the sender as we do as the receiver. Active listening is more than just hearing what the sender is

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.

In one stage of communication, the quality of conversation can be improved when the workers are engaged in active listening. For instance, note taking during meetings which challenge both individual listening and writing skills, encourages co-workers to improve their sort-term memory to be more active later that day (Hybels & Weaver 2008,). It helps listeners to verify their understanding, and it gives the other person an opportunity to elaborate on main point of the information. Active and effective listening behaviours have a huge impact on the growth of business in the work place, because it shows the interaction between co-workers and how they deal with problems in their environment (Eunson 2012). Active and effective listening demonstrates the ability of workers to hear and feel what the other people want so say without judgment. Thus, active and effective listening skills have positively impact on the workplace.

“Effective communication is a two way information sharing process which involves one party sending a message that is easily understood by the receiving party”

The ability to listen well is an important tool for understanding others. Sadly, very few people know how to listen well. In fact, most people can think of only one or two good listeners in their lives. Listening is not simply agreeing - it is much more. Good listeners are able to better understand and respond to others, complete assignments accurately, settle disagreements before they escalate, and establish rapport with difficult people.

What is active listening, it the process of information, which uses all of our senses to convey a message through perceiving of sound? Our, hearing, smell, taste and touch are part of our senses that we sometimes use without knowing we are doing it. Moreover, listening correctly, can be a crucial part of encoding and decoding the message, for clarification and understanding what the message is conveying. While deciphering messages, you get a sense of understanding what the message is trying to express. Next, is trying to remember or recall what the message is so that you can retain it. Also, evaluating what you hear and decoded or deciphered it is essential to understanding what the message is. When we actively listen, there is some paraphrasing during this process, where you have to restate the information given by the speaker into your own words. Lastly, responding to the message with an answer, it could be for learning purposes, personal, enjoyment or even employment, it is important to listen to ensure understanding actively. As we respond, there is an answer and feedback given (DeVito 2016) as a response.

Active Listening It is most important to learn how to pay full attention to others as they communicate, and this process involves more than merely listening to the words. It involves absorbing the content, noting gestures and subtle changes in voice or expression, and

Active listening includes a variety of behaviors which communicate to the other that they are heard and understood, that the feelings which underlie the words are appreciated and accepted, and that regardless of what the individual says, thinks or feels, they are accepted as a person by the listener. Active listening demands that the receiver of the message put aside the belief that listening is easy and that it happens naturally and realize that effective listening is hard work. Good listening encourages the speaker, promotes trust and respect, improves relationships, and makes resolution of problems more likely. Good listeners are prepared to listen, show interest, keep an open mind, listen critically, resist distractions,

Listening is more complex, and it encourages one to analyze and think about an idea, rather than to simply accept it (or “hear” it). Hearing is a skill that is beneficial for every aspect of life. As long as we have our ability to hear, we will always perceive different sounds, music, and voices. Listening, however, is beneficial to us in specific instances. It is important for us to attain good listening skills in education, the work force, and in our relationships with others in order to succeed. Good listening in education will bring about confident participation in class discussions; good listening in the workplace will lead to cooperation and good teamwork among colleagues; good listening in relationships is healthy and positive, for it is important to hear what an individual has to say in order to know how they feel.

Active listening is an attentive and interactive form of listening. One of the primary objectives of active listening is establishing and achieving empathy among all parties engaged in communication together. The words a person uses during communication are important, yet active listening includes listening to a person's words as well as interpreting and intuiting what a person feels and thinks. Active listening is a highly engaging activity. Active listening requires the person doing the listening to have a very keen awareness of all aspects of the communication. Active listening then is a sensory activity that challenges the listener to see, hear, sense, perceive, understand, feel, empathize, and reciprocate.