Active listening is one of the most important ingredients in communication and is often the weakest point in interaction. There is no active listening when within a dialogue there is no opening towards the other, that is, there is no full attention to what the other person wants to express. Something may be different from your own opinion, however, actively listening means giving respect to the other person.
Understanding through empathy
There are several forms of active listening. For example, you can take your interlocutor’s words as a starting point to make your argument. What’s more, you can synthesize your main ideas by repeating them in your own words. In this way, a bridge of dialogue is established. Active listening also involves asking questions to deepen the conversation.
One of the most important points to promote active listening is not to judge others, in addition to respecting their emotions, feelings and experiences. Active listening is one of the most important skills of emotional intelligence and it connects directly with empathy to be able to look into the other’s eyes. In other words, he works as someone different whose opinions are also conditioned by his own life story and experience.
In order to actively listen, it is very important to have time with the other person.
That is, showing interest in the present moment and being able to share the subject. Another important situation is not to keep looking at the clock during the conversation. Although active listening may seem like a very simple skill in today’s society, the reality is that new technologies through the usual telephone interruptions disperse face-to-face conversations incisively.
listen to body language
Active listening also involves taking care of other signs of verbal communication. For example, you can learn another person’s body language through a simple look, a smile, a gesture , such as facial cues that are expressed without saying a word. In this case, more than listening to body language, it is about observing it. It is a very important complement of information added to the words themselves.
When a person wants to talk about an important subject, you can have the gesture of promoting a meeting for that conversation. Active listening shows the intimacy that is created in some conversations when an emotional connection arises.
