The skill of listening is an important virtue you need to possess to contribute wisely in a discussion or give good advice when needed. To communicate effectively, you should have good listening skills. That starts with paying rapt attention without any interference in between.
Effective listening helps you respond intelligently and significantly. If you’re confused about anything, you can ask questions for clarity’s sake. In the area of learning, you can only make progress if you listen effectively, which will help you retain the knowledge. Also, you can adopt active listening techniques like closely monitoring the behavior of the speaker and body movement. That will help you fully comprehend their message. In this article, you’ll learn how to improve the listening skills that help you communicate effectively in real life and on communication platforms like Funchatt.
7 Types Of Listening Skills
Informational Listening
This listening skill requires you to pay maximum attention to the speaker. You’ll have to learn many new things if you’re on a self-development journey. To achieve this, you need to adopt this listening skill because it involves your full concentration to understand what you want to learn.
Also, you should effectively practice this listening mode if you wish to resolve any issues or miscommunication both in your personal and work life. By constantly practicing this skill, you’ll notice a significant improvement in yourself and your ability to understand the other person better.
Discriminative Listening
This is a natural listening skill that is inherent in everyone. This listening style looks out for facial expressions, body language, verbal cues, and voice tones to deduce your message.
Also, it doesn’t always rely on spoken words to get a full understanding. Furthermore, babies often use this method of listening to know what you’re saying before they begin comprehending words.
Again, if there’s a hidden fact in a conversation, you’ll easily find out what it is through discriminative listening skills. Likewise, if someone agrees to do something but doesn’t really want to, you’ll surely discover it from their body language or facial expressions.
Biased Listening
This is a selective listening skill, where you specifically pick the exact information you need and pay less attention to other information. However, if you’re an employee with this listening style, you’d only have half the instructions. In turn, you’ll have less performance at work.
To improve your listening skills, platforms like Funchatt can help you become a good listener while interacting with people via chat.
Sympathetic Listening
This style of listening is an emotional way of listening to someone. You tend to pay more attention to the emotions and attitudes of the person speaking. If the speaker is feeling down, you’ll easily find out through sympathetic listening skills. Also, this will help you say the right words and give the desired assistance at that moment. Most times, the speaker feels relieved and unburdened knowing someone is keenly listening compassionately.
Comprehensive Listening
This type of listening skill requires that you pay thorough attention. That will help you interpret what you heard correctly and understand the information you received.
Furthermore, comprehensive listening skills cut across other listening skills. Why? because you need to understand your task fully. This method will enable you to give great feedback. This skill is especially helpful in the workplace and helps you minimize mistakes while carrying out tasks.
Empathetic And Therapeutic Listening
This skill helps you feel what people are feeling. It makes you discern someone’s mood and put yourself in their position if they’re passing through difficult moments. That allows you to give the right help or support where needed.
This listening skill allows you to see from other people’s standpoints when speaking. Also, proffering solutions to problems is quite easy when you exhibit this listening skill.
Here’s an example:
A friend might be narrating his current losses in business and huge debts that weigh him down. Empathetic listening skills will make you feel his pain by putting yourself in his shoes. And at some point, you may begin to feel as if you have made a loss. That is because you imagine what it feels like to record losses and be in debt. However, this may act as a push to lend a helping hand.
Critical Listening
This listening technique is used to examine intricate information. That is a deep form of listening, which makes you think deeply to find hidden answers.
As an employee, critical listening is essential to help you tackle difficult issues at work. This skill helps you accept or decline such a solution whenever one is given to any problem.
To Be A Good Listener, Start Doing The Following:
- Pay Attention
Endeavor to pay attention to the speaker. Don’t interrupt in between, and maintain good eye contact. Don’t show unnecessary signals or cause distractions with your body language. When you’re allowed to speak, contribute and answer accurately to show that you were following.
- Embrace New Ideas
To be an effective listener, you should be willing to widen your horizons by embracing new ideas and trying out innovations. Avoid arguments, and don’t be judgmental.
Always have time to ponder on what you’ve heard and make necessary adjustments. That helps you to level up to the standard you’re expected to reach.
- Ask Questions
A good listener asks questions. Don’t assume you know it all. If you’re confused about something, gently call back the speaker’s attention. Seek clarity wherever you’re confused. Note that when you listen attentively, you’ll ask thought-provoking questions, which will set the speaker on his feet even to research more.
- Break The Words Into Bits
If you listened well, you should be able to summarise all you’ve learned in a few sentences. Giving a good summary of everything said at a meeting or seminar is a way to show effective listening. At the end of the speech or conversation, you can share some life experiences in line with the conversation. This way, the speaker will understand that you fully participated.
Final Words
Possessing good listening skills will help you to understand your assignment, especially at your place of work. If you desire to improve your journey to self-growth, you need to pay attention to little details and apply them where necessary. You should improve your listening skills to become a valuable asset in your family or society. Join Funchatt to practice these listening skills while communicating and interacting with people!
