5 Types Of Listening Skills with Examples

In this fast pacing world, if you need to be successful then your communication and negotiation skills must be very powerful. This is what we keep listening all day long. But along with proper communication, it is very important that you should be a good listener. Yes, it is very obvious. Because when you listen to something carefully, only then you would be able to understand and convey your thoughts. 

So a very common question – Are you one of those good listeners? 

Listening is a highly valued soft skill that should be sought by all the employees. The people who have the ability to listen carefully, understand the tasks and projects easily, build strong relationships with others. Moreover, a good listener has the ability to resolve conflicts and solve various issues.

We would help you to understand why the good listening skill is helpful for your career. All the employees need to imbibe this skill along with good communications. In addition to that, being a good listener is also helpful in your daily lives. You can improve your listening skills with these 4 simple ways and become a good listener.

You won’t be surprised to know that there are 5 different types of Listening. So let’s explore those 5 types.

1. Biased Listening

This type of listening is dependent on what we hear and develop preconceived biases, opinions or expectations. This happens subconsciously without you even realizing it. There are a lot of factors such as work and personal relationships which affect our emotions. In biased listening, the judgment of the person creates a great impact on how you interpret things.

2. Sympathetic Listening

In this type of listening, you show that you are able to understand the person and his/her feelings. It shows that you care for them. Sympathetic listening happens mostly among close friends or family. Your body language plays a very important role – as you tilt your head, sighting or sometimes nodding. 

3. Empathetic Listening

This can be considered as a type of sympathetic listening but it will take it to a new level. Instead of just listening, you start feeling or experiencing those things. It can indicate a really close or strong bond between the persons sharing the feeling. It is very intense and can be deeply felt. You can put yourselves in other’s shoes and easily understand their situation. It will help you to give some tailored advice and making any sort of judgments and also offer suggestions. 

4. Critical Listening

In the case of critical listening, you need to be taking some important things into considerations and make the right judgment. This type of listening has great importance in the business world. It will help the listeners to keep very streamlined and efficient. It will help you in making good decisions and coming up with solutions by analyzing them. By ‘critical’ we sometimes assume in negative emotions but it is not. It helps to reach the conclusion much easily. 

5. Informational Listening

In this type, you need to pay attention to all the information that is being conveyed by the speaker. It can be considered as part of critical listening in which you retain various parts of information. It is also a way to educate yourself, by listening to the news, attending some classes. All these things help you to gain information and insights. It can involve technical and practical aspects. 

Conclusion:

Any sort of listening requires your attention. Only being attentive you can retain information, be sympathetic or empathetic and provide critical results. By concentrating on the content, you can offer good advice and be very watchful for the physical cues and also make better decisions. It will help you to have deeper as well as an emotional understanding of the scenario. So always make sure that communication is an important soft skill but listening also plays a vital role. 

Quick Links

Comprehensive ListeningDiscriminative Listening
Evaluative Listening Appreciative Listening 

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