Active listening: what it means and how we can develop it

Listening is, in general terms, the act through which we receive and process the information we perceive with our ears. But the act of listening in communication is much more than just receiving information, it is also communicating in relation to said information.

An acquired skill

Many times we have heard the well-known phrase “you saw but you didn’t look”, something similar happens with active listening. Active listening is not only hearing and assimilating what our interlocutor or interlocutors tell us; It is, above all, to receive the message consciously to be able, in turn, communicate to the other that what they are trying to tell us we have understood and, furthermore, we have critically analyzed and considered.

For this, attention, concentration, discourse analysis, critical capacity and response skills play a central role, since, without these elements, the process of active listening is practically impossible.

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Active listening is a skill that, like any other, requires conscious and constant practice to master it. To do this, we give you some useful tools in the practice of active listening.

Three keys to active listening:

  1. Emotional disposition: the active listening It occurs when we are fully aware of our role in the communicative act of dialogue. Evidently, we don’t always have the best disposition psychological to attend to details or to understand the needs and expressions of the other, so we must understand our emotional disposition when doing this practice, otherwise it may become difficult.
  2. The message matters as much as the expression: as we said, the eactive listeningIt is about ensuring that whoever communicates with us knows not only that we have understood it but that it matters to us, and that is why we analyze and evaluate critically what he has communicated to us, in order to be able to dialogue enriching and non-empty way. But this attention does not only imply perceiving what is said but also, the unsaid. All the nonverbal language of a person, his emotions when expressing and its apparent intentions They are key in the process.
  3. Empathy: Empathy is a way in which we participate in the emotional condition of the otherwhich is why it is a key piece in the active listeningsince it will allow us enter the other person’s reality and offer you a more comfortable scenario for dialogue.
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The active listening arises from the emotional validation that we give to our interlocutor, therefore, the following behaviors are not recommended, since they do not allow the empathic communication.

Practices that we should avoid:

  • Offer you help in advance
  • Not making eye contact
  • Do not ask
  • Interrupt the interlocutor
  • Not paying attention
  • Judging or not validating the emotions and expressions of the interlocutor
  • Prioritize our ideas or talk about ourselves

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