...Effective Listening Skills Student Name Course/Number Date Instructor Name Introduction Listening is defined by the International Listening Association as the process of receiving and constructing meaning from verbal or non verbal messages, and then offering a response (Cheesebro, O’Connor, & Rios, 2010). This implies that to offer accurate responses in various situations including during conflict resolution, one must be able to receive the information accurately through effective listening in order to draw meaning and respond to the parties in question appropriately (Shermerhon, Hunt, & Osborn, 2004). It is through effective listening to a party that one is able to grasp the intended meaning and offer a relevant response. Effective listening skills are one of the main determinants of the progress of teaching, informing, and conflict resolution. However, various factors need to be put in place to ensure that listening enhances the quality of communication among the parties involved. It requires effective coordination between the brain and the ear as well as proper concentration by the parties involved. This study presents listening strategies employed in effective conflict resolution. Listening Process The starting point is the absorption of information through the ear which is the transmitting device to the brain as indicated below. Source: Cheesebro, T., O’Connor, L., & Rios, F. (2010). For listening to occur, hearing must first take place. While...
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...Andrea Beachum Effective Listening Strategies Paper BSHS 385 October 12, 2015 Audra Stinson Effective Listening Strategies Paper The understanding of what effective listening is and what it means is a vital part of the role of human service provider. Effective listening means more than just hearing what your client is saying to you when they are in a session. Effective listening means that you as the provider are able to understand their body language and other nonverbal cues. By using effective learning skills the human service provider can help the client by providing the right tools and resources to help them gain control over their situation and to help them find a way to a solution. What is effective listening? Effective listening is defined as the ability to actively understand and listen to what the client is saying and to show interest into what is being discussed. Effective listening also means that you are providing the client/individual with reflective feedback that demonstrates that you not only heard what they were saying but that you understand as well. (Effective Listening Skills, 2004-2015) Ways to demonstrate attentive/effective listening skills There are many different ways to show your client and others around you that you are actively listening to what they are saying. Some of these skills come naturally while others tend to need some practice. Listed below are some of the skills that are important when communicating...
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...According to the textbook, the responsibility of a leader in an organization is to provide a vision of the future that supplies the organization with positive and sustainable momentum. It also allows the organization and the employees to continue to grow. Good leaders or managers are capable of persuading huge amounts of people through the use of some kind of rule. In addition, as a manager should build brilliance culture in the delivery of excellence health care services. Furthermore, you should build a culture of establishing trust and improving communication among all employees. Besides, as a health care manager, you need to have an effective listening skills. Listening effectively can help you calm down one’s emotions for them to feel...
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...EFFECTIVE LISTENING AND PRESENTING: ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR A MANAGER TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 Listening 2 2.1 Listening as a Communication Skill 2 2.2 Why are Managers Inherently Poor Listeners? 2 2.3 Key Factors to Effective Listening 3 3 Presenting 7 3.1 Presentation as a Communication Skill 7 3.2 Why are Effective Presentation Skills Important? 8 3.3 Key Factors to Effective Presenting 9 4 Action Plan for the Next Three Months 13 5 Conclusion 15 6 List of References 16 INTRODUCTION Communication is at the heart of everything done by a manager. Thus, effective communication is considered as a major challenge and a responsibility. A majority of a manager’s day is spent on communicating with the subordinates. As stated by Daft, Kendrick, and Vershinina (2010), “Managers spend at least 80% of every working day in direct communication with others. In other words, 48 minutes of every hour is spent in meetings, on the telephone, communicating online or talking informally while working around. The other 20% of a typical manager's time is spent doing desk work”. The need for effective communication has been further increased due to the turbulent nature of the today’s business environment. Therefore, having effective communication skills is arguably one of the vital attributes that a manger has to possess, throughout planning, organizing, leading, directing and controlling processes. Basically, the manager should act...
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...EFFECTIVE LISTENING IN THE WORKPLACE Jeff Bernier Abstract “Listening is perhaps the most critical element in language and language learning, for it is the key to speaking, and beyond that, reading and writing. At all levels --- from entry level to managerial --- listening is perceived as crucial for communication. Yet listening remains one of the least understood processes in language learning” (Allene Grognet and Carol Van Duzer, 2002, p. 1). The ability to listen to employees and colleagues is an essential skill for developing a productive environment. By improving listening skills, supervisors and employees can create a “listening environment” within their own organization. This study examines the relationship between University of Southern Maine (USM) personal that feel they have effective listening skills and USM personal that had training in effective listening skills. The subjects were 182 USM employees surveyed to determine effective listening in the workplace. Each USM employee surveyed identified themselves as either an “employee” or “supervisor”, the number of years employed and answered either “yes” or “no” to ten various questions on effective listening in the workplace. Results showed strong, positive relationships among the two dependent variables in effective listening in the workplace. Hypothesis USM employees who feel they have effective listening skills as determined by the survey conducted at USM have a positive relationship with USM employees...
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...Harvey (2006:160) Listening is the first communication skill we practice as infants, and from listening to other people around us, we learn how to speak. We listen far more than we speak, read or write; possibly up to 75% of the time, yet it is a communication skill we are not formally taught. We can close our eyes and mouth and can leave the keyboard or pen alone, but our ears are constantly open. We are frequently told to ‘listen up’, that we ‘weren’t listening ‘, that we ‘never listen’, but we are seldom taught how to listen effectively. What make an effective manager? To be an effective manager, you have to be a good listener. Manager must possess three listening components: Hearing, Understanding and Retaining. Hearing is the ability to receive sounds. Understanding is the ability to make sense of what we hear. While retaining is the ability to remember what has been heard. Listening to an individual is the most important attribute of an effective manager. Manager who listen, earn employees respect and loyalty. They discover important things about how the business is going. Manager can show effective listening when employees or customers are communicating with them by their body language, facial expression and through eye contact. A manager who doesn’t listen is not a good communicator. As a manager you need to listen, to benefit from your employees thoughts then direct his or her thought to the mission, vision or goal. If the employee feels the manager hears theirs...
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...Social workers as a profession must continue to further their education to ensure that the skills utilized are based on best practice methods. With the changing roles of social work within the addiction field, the skills needed by professionals transformed as well. However, the universal communication skills employed by the generalist practitioner are beneficial for implementing in the field of addiction. Communication is relevant skill regardless of methods employed by professional helpers. Listening is the key component of relating with others whether this is on a personal level or a professional one. Social workers begin a working relationship with the client system through the engagement process. The mode of creating this is through the listening process. Attending to the client verbal and nonverbal cues enables the addiction clinician to assess the clients’ perception of their problem and where they are in the change process. Even though the techniques applied in addiction counseling are altering; listening skills will still the...
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...Listening and Effective Workplace Communication James Humes, a former presidential speech writer, stated that, "the art of communication is the language of leadership" (Leading Thoughts, 2010). Communication is an essential process that is common in the workplace. Everyone in the workplace especially leaders must communicate with others. Ideas, conversations, disagreements, and commitments can all be exchanged through communication. Anyone can communicate but it takes discipline and skills to effectively communicate. These skills can include feedback, presentation, non-verbal communication, and listening. Listening is the most valuable skills to effective workplace communication because it enhances job effectiveness, relationships and responses. Most people equate hearing with listening and they do not take time to improve their listening skills. To be an effective communicator a person must understand the differences between hearing and listening. Listening is an active process that requires more effort than it takes to hear. “Listening is the conscious desire to determine the meaning of what is heard” (Behera, 2010). Hearing a message rather than listening could cause a person to agree to something that they did not intend to. An active listener participates in the communication process by being focused on the message that is being communicated. The in-depth process of listening will result in a verbal or non-verbal response to let the communicator know that...
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...objective of this term paper is to study the keys for effective presenting and listening which are two crucial skills a manager must sharpen. Along with this, it identifies the relevance and importance of these two skills for my profession and develops an action plan to improve these twin skills within myself. This assignment is prepared as a requirement of the course Business Communication (MBA 503), Master of Business Administration 2013 program of Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM), University of Sri Jayewardenepura. 2. Manager’s Skills and Role within an Organization Managing an organization has four main aspects which are namely planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Each manager has to learn and keep their work in accordance with the main aspects. To manage the organization a manager must have three main skill areas as follows; • Conceptual skills • Human skills • Technical skills The skill level differs depending on the level of hierarchy that manager is positioned. As the manager moves up on the hierarchy, conceptual skills get prominent and at the lower levels of the hierarchy, technical skills get prominent. Human skills remain the same at each hierarchical level revealing that it is equally important to all levels of managers. Effective presenting and listening are two skills that come under human skills and are key skills that all managers every level must sharpen. 3. Effective Presenting It is a requirement for every manager...
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...Effective Listening Strategies BSHS 385 April 21, 2015 Dr. Barbara Hughson Effective Listening Strategies Effective listening is an important part of the human service profession. This paper will review three articles about effective listening. For each article, I will provide a summary that includes my thoughts of the article, what was learned about effective listening, and how I can apply it to my daily life as a human service professional. I will also discuss my thoughts on how I will use these strategies and how effective they may be. The first article I read is called “Listen Carefully." This article is discussing teaching listening skills to school-aged children. Some of the research reviewed shows the importance of listening when it comes to human learning and development. Learning how to listen is the first skill in language most children will develop first. Once children begin school, listening becomes even more important because the majority of what children learn is through listening. An interesting fact to me was when McPherson (2008) stated, “Teaching listening skills to middle school at-risk readers improved their reading comprehension scores and found that listening to a story while reading the story's words also improved elementary children's reading comprehension.” (McPherson, 2008) This speaks volumes to me especially when the teaching of listening skills in the classroom is not being done today. Teachers who start teaching listening strategies have...
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...average of 70% of their time engaged in some sort of communication, of this an average of 45% is spent listening compared to 30% speaking, 16% reading and 9% writing.” (Adler, R. et al. 2001). Based on the research of: Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001). Interplay: the process of interpersonal communicating (8th edn), Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt. In this fast paced, technology-based world where the need to communicate is more important than ever, we all seem to be in so much of a hurry, that we do not really take the time to listen to what people are saying. Listening can help improve accuracy, solve problems, resolve conflict, and build relationships. As simple as good listening seems, through poor listening, we can misinterpret and misunderstand, which can cause confusion, frustration, and even conflict in both our professional and personal relationships. In a study of over 8,000 people employed in businesses, hospitals, universities, the military and government agencies, results showed that most people responding felt that they communicate as effectively or more effectively than their co-workers. However, research shows that the average person listens at only about 25% efficiency. Interestingly, while most people tend to agree that effective listening is an important skill, they do not feel the need to improve the level of their listening skills. (Haney, W. V. 1979). Despite the date of this study, it reflects an important statistic, one that...
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...Public Speaking 210-50 Informative Speech September 7, 2011 Chapter 5: Listening to Speeches Listening is an important part of the communication process. It is stated as being the active processing of the information we receive. How well you listen has a major impact on the quality of your relationships with others. Listening is a skill which everyone can benefit from improvement. A great deal of our communication process is devoted to listening. Chapter five focuses on improving your listening skills with suggestions and principles and also identifies barriers that keep people from listening at peak efficiency. In this essay, we will go over all key points and terms that will help you become an effective listener. To become an effective listener we first need to develop certain skills that can be used in stages to guide us through the process. Effective listening involves selecting, attending to, understanding, and remembering the meaning behind the message. The goal as a public speaker is to develop and deliver a speech that audience members will listen and respond to. (62) Although it seems easy, there are barriers that can hinder a speech from being received by the listener. These barriers are referred to as listening barriers. Listening barriers are created when we fail to select, attend to, or understand a message or remember what was said. (62) There are many listening barriers that can vary depending on the individual; however, the book has narrowed...
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...Analyzing of Listening Effectiveness When a person communicates what they think, want, and feel do you know what they mean? Are you being an effective listener to the person that is expressing their thoughts to you? Being an effective listener requires more than just hearing the words that are coming out of the speaker's mouth. Hearing is mechanical and requires minimal effort or skill. Listening is a skill that requires practice and concentration to avoid the barriers that are working against it (Hynes, 2005). Effective communication exists when the receiver interprets and understands the sender's message in the same way the sender intended for it to be. According to Larry Nadig, Ph.D. (1999), there are three basic modes of listening. There is competitive listening, attentive listening, and active listening. With competitive listening, the listener is more interested in his or her own point of view than that of the speaker's. With competitive listening, the listener is pretending to pay attention to the speaker when he or she is actually looking for an opening to take over the speaking and promote his or her own views. Attentive listening occurs when the listener is genuinely interested in hearing and understanding the speaker's is saying. With attentive listening, the listener assumes that what he or she heard was correct and factual from the speaker but does not verify it. Active listening is the most important form of listening and can prove...
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...Overview This paper offers the non-subject specialist an overview of the literature which has influenced the development of listening and interpersonal skills in UK higher education. It refers to articles, seminal texts and writers within the field. In order to provide some context, the first section of the review covers some issues relating to the definition of listening and interpersonal skills and some examples are presented to demonstrate their interdependence. The importance of these skills within occupational and educational domains is also highlighted. The review then goes on to place listening and interpersonal skills in context by exploring historical perspectives, factors influencing current developments and providing an indication of issues which may affect future development. The paper introduces different approaches to listening and interpersonal skills within some key disciplines and considers the extent to which the teaching and learning of listening and interpersonal skills has been integrated within these discipline. In conclusion we consider emerging themes relating to advances in technology and widening participation, including the cross cultural agenda. A glance at the definitions section below will reveal the substantial overlap that exists between this topic and some of the other LearnHigher learning areas, most notably those relating to oral communications and group work. Although we acknowledge this overlap at various points during the review, readers...
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...Introduction This article written by Bill Reynolds is entitled ‘Characteristics of Good Listening Skills’ dated – and it is from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/. It discusses the attributes of a good listener possesses. Listening skill is an important skill but difficult to master. Most people unaware that it is a skill. Firstly, good listener encourages the speaker by providing positive reinforcement. Secondly, looking at the speaker by maintaining eye contact and observing his non-verbal messages. Thirdly, always convey interest to the speaker by providing constant feedback. Lastly, deferring rebuttal by waiting the speaker to finish talking. Critical Review In my opinion, listening plays a crucial role in an effective communication. Communication takes place along four modalities: speaking, writing, listening and reading. Listening is at once the least understood and the most important of these competencies. Listening is a skill of critical significance in all aspects of our lives, from maintaining our personal relationships, to getting our jobs done, to taking notes in class, to figuring out which bus to take to the airport. Regardless of how we're engaged with listening, it is important to understand that listening involves more than just hearing the words that are directed at us. Most people often forget that we have one mouth and two ears, which means we should listen twice as much as we speak. That way provides us the capability to connect with others on...
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