How can you personal listening style impact your communication?

How to derive increased business value from listening styles.

Behavioral styles, communication styles and leadership styles are familiar to many business people. But have you ever wondered about your listening style?

Most self-assessments do not measure how we listen. Yet we all recognize how important listening is to communication, both in the work environment and on the home front. It is estimated that people screen out or change the intended purpose of what they hear in over 70% of all communications and the biggest factor contributing to such miscommunications is our listening approach.

Listening styles can be used to enhance your ability to trigger right response with people you collaborate with. They give you insight into the gaps that might be there as well as what you typically focus on.

They are crucial for people skills development, your ability to gather right information, as well as in negotiation and meetings. In fact for some roles in sales, customer service, negotiation and conflict resolution they are integral to achieving excellence.

Personal Listening Profiles can help people in your organization to:

• discover their natural approach to listening

• capitalize on their listening strengths

• learn how different listening approaches impact listening effectiveness

• improve their ability to understand the purpose of different communications

• use listening approaches appropriate to the situation

• overcome listening barriers and reduce conflict

• enhance individual and team performance

The Five Listening Profiles explained Behavioral research shows that people listen with a preferred listening style. These can be feeling oriented, such as the appreciate and empathic listening styles, or analysis-oriented, such as the discerning, comprehensive and evaluative listening styles. Here we have summarized the key features of each style for easy reference.

Appreciative Listening Profile ‘Appreciative’ listeners like to be entertained. They listen for inspiration, and prefer listening to speakers who make them feel good about themselves, which helps them relax. They are also more likely to pay attention if they enjoy the presentation, and if the speaker enjoys his or her performance. Appreciative Listeners care more about their overall impression of the speaker than the details he or she presented.

Empathic Listening Profiles ‘Empathic’ listeners want to provide the speaker with a sounding board to offer support and reflection. They are patient and find it easy to relate to a speaker’s feelings. They may even recognize what a speaker wants even before the speaker sees it clearly. Empathic Listeners reflect what they hear others saying and let others know that they care about what has been said. As a result, Empathic Listeners are often approached by people who want to “let off steam”, but if asked for advice the Empathic Listener will encourage others to decide for themselves.

Discerning Listening Profiles Discerning Listeners want to make sure they get all the information. They focus closely on any presentation or conversation and frequently take notes so that they will not forget it. Discerning Listeners usually remember the speaker’s appearance, behavior, and voice. They find distractions annoying and will likely tune out if there are too many distractions.

Comprehensive Listening Profiles Comprehensive Listeners relate what they hear to what they already know by organizing and summarizing the information they hear. They are good at recognizing key points and links between one message and another, even when a speaker is disorganized. Comprehensive Listeners seek to understand the rationale of the argument and ask clarifying questions. They can generally figure out what people intend to say, recognize when someone is saying one thing and means something else and can re-explain more clearly.

Evaluative Listening Profile Evaluative Listeners do not accept something as true just because an expert says it. They tend to be skeptical about overly enthused speakers, listening for how a speaker develops the arguments and look for facts to support a speaker’s comments. Evaluative Listeners try to figure out the speaker’s intention before responding to the message and may mentally “argue” with the speaker. If Evaluative Listeners do not like what a speaker is saying, they quit listening.

People-oriented listeners

People-oriented listeners areconcerned about the emotional states of others and listen with the purpose of offering support in interpersonal relationships. People-oriented listeners can be characterized as “supporters” who are caring and understanding. These listeners are sought out because they are known as people who will “lend an ear.” They may or may not be valued for the advice they give, but all people often want is a good listener. This type of listening may be especially valuable in interpersonal communication involving emotional exchanges, as a person-oriented listener can create a space where people can make themselves vulnerable without fear of being cut off or judged. People-oriented listeners are likely skilled empathetic listeners and may find success in supportive fields like counseling, social work, or nursing.

Action-oriented listeners

Action-oriented listeners focus on what action needs to take place in regards to a received message and try to formulate an organized way to initiate that action. These listeners are frustrated by disorganization, because it detracts from the possibility of actually doing something. Action-oriented listeners can be thought of as “builders”—like an engineer, a construction site foreperson, or a skilled project manager. This style of listening can be very effective when a task needs to be completed under time, budgetary, or other logistical constraints. One research study found that people prefer an action-oriented style of listening in instructional contexts (Imhof, 2004). In other situations, such as interpersonal communication, action-oriented listeners may not actually be very interested in listening, instead taking a “What do you want me to do?” approach. A friend and colleague of mine who exhibits some qualities of an action-oriented listener once told me about an encounter she had with a close friend who had a stillborn baby. My friend said she immediately went into “action mode.” Although it was difficult for her to connect with her friend at an emotional/empathetic level, she was able to use her action-oriented approach to help out in other ways as she helped make funeral arrangements, coordinated with other family and friends, and handled the details that accompanied this tragic emotional experience. As you can see from this example, the action-oriented listening style often contrasts with the people-oriented listening style.