Listening Styles Paper

Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. Listening is key to all effective communication, without the ability to listen effectively messages are easily misunderstood, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or annoyed. Listening is also a crucial skill that students, medical practitioners and lawyers must possess. Listening is so important that many top employers provide listening skills training for their employees. This is not surprising when you consider that good listening skills can lead to better customer satisfaction, greater production with fewer mistakes, increased sharing of information that in turn can lead to more creative and

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.

Given that listening accounts for 45 per cent of time spent on communication (Eunson 2012:310), argue the importance of listening skills in the workplace. Your analysis should identify three specific listening behaviors and provide examples to demonstrate how these skills promote communication and understanding. Support your analysis with relevant communication theory and evidence from appropriate academic sources.

This book makes presentations of exceptional and rational methods as to, “Why Don’t We Listen Better?” through the expertise of Dr. Jim Petersen. According to Petersen (2007), “Good communication is just as important in business, family, and social life” (p. 17). According to the reading, listening is essential to work effectively with others and to maintain relationships and friendships. Furthermore, good communication can make a difference in casual relationships and more intimate relationships. Moreover, the book presents the importance of understanding and listening to others as a reciprocal beneficial interaction.

Listening is a huge quality that most people get to use daily. Listening and to be listened to are huge fundamentals in our overall health. However, the way we choose to listen is another aspect. Listening is an active, voluntary, learned process. In order to have effective communication, we must have effective listening. In order for one to listen, they must be able to comprehend the message. While in healthcare, we want our patients to be understood and we want our patients to be able to understand us. For optimum results of listening, create a receptive environment that engages in reflective listening. Reflective listening encourages our patient to communicate. It is a good way to enacts checks and balances on how our patient is feeling.

Listeners need to make eye contact, pay attention to the non-verbal communication, take notes, and acknowledge the points. Listeners need to avoid distractions and interruptions. On occasionally, organizations have to test the employee such as observe evaluations for all employees. These improvements can only build listening skills in organization's if everyone works together.

There are five main stages involved with listening, they are, the receiving stage, the interpreting stage, the recalling stage, the evaluating stage, and the responding stage. Each of these stages play a crucial role in listening but in this paper we will focus on the last stage, the responding stage. Of all the stages included I feel the responding stage plays a bit of a larger role not in listening itself but in how we can affect how others listen.

Listening by definition would be to give ones attention to a sound, however, in business we need to be active listeners providing responses that engage the person speaking and affirm we hear them. As managers we are often tasked with the skill of listening. Your subordinates will need to be heard and have important things to discuss. One example may be an employee discussing a safety issue. The ability to actively listen to the employee and provide feedback will assure the employee you have taken their concern and plan to act. I have found a website that offers training on the skill of listening called mindtools.com. One can utilize this website to improve the skill of listening.

Listening is a skill that is not regularly taught in schools. Therefore, I found that analyzing my listening skills taught me a lot about myself that I did not know before. I kept track of my self-talk and inner voice, did a seven day mental review, did the HURIER listening profile, and assessed how I listened in different social situations and listening contexts and what listening contexts I experienced the most. I also learned about my strengths as a listener being understanding and interpreting. My weaknesses were hearing and remembering. Additionally, I created some listening goals that I would like to accomplish this term.

During the summer while taking Critical Listening (Communication 240), my goal was to not over-think questions, evaluate with a clear response, and become a comprehensive listener. I have observed and analyzed that I was not being honest with myself due to bad listening habits through conversations or functions. Sometimes during a speech, lecture, and meetings, I tend to selectively listen to interesting facts than relevant ones. Partial listening occasionally occurs when I’m speaking to two or more people in a group setting. Although, I did not pay attention as much as I should to understand concepts for some task, I have practiced new strategies to build into a great listener. Through this reflection, I will discuss what I have learned in this course and plan to grow in the future.

The main concept in the Why we don’t listen better. This text examines effective methods that the talker and listener can use while communicating. Petersen, The author demonstrates the importance of listening while communicating he stated it is essential to eliminate barriers that may distract the listener from effectively listening to the message that the talker is trying to deliver(Petersen, 2015 ). The listener body language will display if they are interested in the conversation if the listener is not interested they will interrupt or change the subject(Petersen,). The talker will leave the conversation not feeling satisfied due to the fact they were interrupted. Communication is a process that requires two

At the beginning of the year my listening guides were lacking in detail and full force effort. I did not understand that in order to achieve a good grade, many hours of studying was a necessity. In both listening guide 1 and 2, I had some spelling and grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I had proof read it. This is due to my inexperience and inability to understand what was expected of me. I was used to writing at the high school level however with this course It made me adjust to writing at the college level. In my listening guide 3 I spent three days writing and editing my paper while on previous listening guides, I would spend one day on them. By only spending one day on my listening guides, I was not able to submit my best

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.

One of the key concepts discussed in this paper is the very important skill of listening. There are many potential obstacles with learning to listen well; some have to do with the listener and some with the lecturer. The fact that you are able to hear does not necessarily mean you are able to actively listen. Listening is a thinking activity and just like writing it can be improved with practice. The purpose of attending lectures during your university career is to understand and record this understanding for future use. Focusing on what you are thinking, analyzing and questioning what is being instructed by the lecturer and furthermore, learning the presenter’s style of teaching can assist you to actively listen.

The purpose of this memo is to evaluate my listening skills, assess my strengths and weaknesses, and describe how I can improve my skills. My listening self-assessment score of 36 indicates that, although my skill level is decent, I have room to improve significantly. I regularly attend professional meetings where either informational listening or critical listening is required. Despite this, I consider my listening skills subpar and am aware of my need for improvement. In understanding how I can improve, I must first assess my strengths and weaknesses.