Styles of Effective Listening - Essay Example

Running head: Communication Interpersonal Communication Introduction In Thomas Hardy’s opinion, “A mans silence is wonderful to listen to”(Active Listening, n. d). It is easy to become a good orator, but it is difficult to become a good listener. Listening requires lot of patience and temperament from the part of the listener. Some people listen actively whereas some listeners listen passively. Active listeners try to understand what the orator is telling whereas the passive listeners may not bother much about understanding the things he listened. This paper briefly analyses styles of effective listening related to me and its benefits to my team. Styles of effective listening related to me Hooks (2010) has defined self concept as the sum total of knowledge and understanding of ones self and the physical, psychological, and social attributes, which can be influenced by the individuals attitudes, habits, beliefs and ideas as the components of the self-concept (Hooks, 2010). Culture plays an important role in the development of self concept. It is a fact that people born in a good family or cultural backgrounds may exhibit may have advantage over shaping of their self concept compared to others. For example, a child born in a wealthy American family may have definite advantage over a child born in a poor African country, in developing their self concept. Thus I can safely say that my cultural background has tremendous influence on the development of my self concept. Gender, age, race etc can also affect the development of self concept. For example, in many cases, females listen actively to the opinions of males. In other words, females have a conception/misconception that males are more knowledgeable than them and their views and opinions are more valuable than theirs. Same way, children and youths actively listen to the opinions of elders. It is difficult to see an elder person listening actively to a younger person. Elders always have the life experiences more than the younger and their opinions always get respect in the society. Thus age also can play a major role in the self concept development and listening behaviours. Race is the third segment which can affect the listening and self concept development. People coming from aristocratic family or race may develop a superiority feeling and they will try to inject their ideas over others even if it is rubbish. On the other hand, the views and opinions of people from lower race or family background normally neglected by others even if it is meaningful. In order to mention the listening barriers I faced in day of listening, I think I must give a brief idea about myself. In my own self concept or assessment, I am a person with above average skills in most of the areas of life. I have interest in politics, sports, cinemas, social issues, ethics, philosophy, history, science etc. In other words I try to acquire as much as knowledge in all the areas of human life which helped me to say few words about most of the topics any time without a preparation. I don’t know whether it is a superiority complex or not; I have the habit of interfering in between a conversation. It is difficult for me to listen silently for a longer period. Whenever, others try to express some views, I have my own comments or responses for that and I will never wait till others finish expressing their opinion. I have interest in listening to the topics which I am interested in. I dislike topics which are not interesting to me. Suppose a person talking to me about American politics. I cannot resist my temptation to respond to the comments instantly. I will never wait till the person finishes his speech and I will ask argue with him if his opinions are against my conceptions and I will contribute to his opinions if his views are in line with my own views. This is my style of listening. As a listener, I know I have strengths and weakness. My major strength as a listener is my ability to contribute to the opinions expressed by the orator. I will explain the opinions expressed by the orator in a more clear way with examples if it needs clarity. On the other hand, my weakness as a listener is my interference in between a conversation. I will never allow the orator to finish his speech and whether it is right or wrong, I always like to support or oppose the views of the orator before he finishes his speech. On the other hand, I have no complaints about others listening me. In most of the cases, people interested in my way of expressing ideas and they will listen actively without much interference. I know I have to improve my listening skills. I need to be more patient and I should respect the ideas of others. I have to work on my patience and temperament in listening and I should develop a habit of think twice before commenting to the opinions of others. My self assessment report and the benefits to the team I am sure, my team will learn a lot from my self assessment report on listening. My team can analyse the pros and cons of my listening habits and can accept the good things while rejecting the bad ones. I think, first thing my team will learn from my report is that knowledge is the main thing which controls the listening habits of a person. It is difficult for an idiot to comment on all the topics. It is a fact that highly knowledgeable diplomats always listen the arguments of opposite party patiently before presenting their arguments or counter arguments. In other words, their silence is not their weakness, but a tactics to know fully about the others opinion before making comment. On the other hand, it should be remembered that silence is not always the symbol of diplomacy in a conversation. People without knowledge or idiots will also keep silence in a conversation. Active listening intentionally focuses on who we are listening to, whether in a group or one-on-one, in order to understand what he or she is saying. As the listener, we should then be able to repeat back in our own words what they have said to their satisfaction which does not mean we agree with, but rather understand, what they are saying (Active Listening, n. d). Some people have the belief that active listening means listen to the speaker without any interference. A person who actively listen something may think about it and develop some responses about it. He should express his responses at the proper time in order to make the conversation more meaningful. It is difficult for an orator to speak to an audience who were sleeping. The orator needs the responses either in verbal or nonverbal forms in order to get motivation. Positive body languages from the listeners encourage the orator to go deep into the topic or subject. It is not necessary that the responses should always be in a verbal form. Gestures like shaking of head, applauding, positive facial expressions etc can be considered as the symbols of active listening. If the listener knows what the orator is going to speak, his curiosity will be decreased. The success of an orator depends on how well he was able to develop curiosity among the listeners. Some speakers, instead of going directly into the topics, start from some thing which may not have any connection with the topic he was going to speak. Some people introduce their topics through interesting stories and incidents in order to motivate others. In any case, it is the duty of the orator to keep the audience always interested in the topic. Active listeners take each word from the orator seriously. (Effective Listening, n. d) Another important thing which attracts the attention of listeners is the mastery of the orator over his topic. Only a person with good knowledge can speak about a topic authoritatively. Others can merely pass the information. For example, a person with a master degree in Physics can speak authoritatively about the physical world whereas it is possible for a person with economic background can also deliver lectures about physical things. The difference between the lectures of these two persons remains in their understanding levels of the topic. The economist can collect information from some sources like internet and books to deliver a lecture on physical things, but such lectures would be informational rather than conformational. The economist can talk about the economic topics whereas only the Physics experts would be able to talk about physical things more authoritatively. The listeners or the audience can identify the knowledge level of the speaker in the topic and if they found some drawbacks, they will not listen eagerly to such orators. Conclusions Listening is a difficult task for many people. Only people with a substantial mastery over a topic can encourage the audience for active listening. Listening skills are different for different people. An active listener will always express his response to the topic he listens either in the verbal or in the nonverbal forms. References 1. Active Listening, (n. d), Retrieved on 27 April 2010 from http://www.studygs.net/listening.htm 2. Effective Listening, (n. d), Retrieved on 27 April 2010 from http://www.1000ventures.com/design_elements/selfmade/listening_bt_6x4.png 3. Hooks Julian, (2010), The effects of culture on self-concept, Retrieved on 27 April 2010 from http://www.helium.com/items/945653-the-effects-of-culture-on-self-concept Read More