The Art of Active Listening | The Harvard Business Review Guide
Harvard Business Review・6 minutes read
Active listening goes beyond simply staying quiet and repeating what you've heard, requiring engagement and various skills. It involves putting away distractions, recognizing it as a two-way interaction, adapting listening styles, asking good questions, and paying attention to verbal and nonverbal cues to create a supportive environment for effective communication. Senior leaders are encouraged to actively listen without judgment, seek input from all levels, and prioritize trust over hierarchy to foster open feedback.
Insights
- Active listening involves engaging with the speaker, adapting your listening style based on the context, and utilizing verbal and nonverbal cues effectively to show understanding and support.
- Senior leaders should prioritize active listening without bias, encourage input from all team members, and foster a culture of trust over hierarchy to promote open communication and feedback.
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Recent questions
How can I become a better listener?
By putting away distractions and actively engaging in conversations.
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Summary
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Effective Listening: Active Engagement for Understanding and Support
- Good listening involves more than just staying silent and repeating back what you heard; it requires active engagement and various skills.
- To be a great listener, put away distractions and recognize that listening is an active, two-way interaction, not just absorbing information passively.
- Assess your default listening style - task-oriented, analytical, relational, or critical - and adapt it based on the conversation's goals and the speaker's needs.
- Asking good questions and paying attention to verbal and nonverbal cues can deepen your listening, showing the speaker that you understand and support them.
- Senior leaders must actively listen without judgment, seek input from all levels, and prioritize trust over hierarchy to create an open environment for feedback.
