What listening is a form of empathetic listening?

Empathic Listening: Definition, Examples and Tips

By Indeed Editorial Team

February 8, 2021

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Being a close and caring listener can be as vital in the workplace as it is in your personal life. Validating others’ viewpoints and expressing your compassion is an important way of communicating for building and maintaining strong working relationships. In this article, we’ll define empathic listening, discuss why it’s important and provide tips and examples for empathic listening in your career.

What Is Empathic Listening?

Themeaning of empathic listeningis rooted in attentiveness, showing compassion and being kind to others when they’re speaking.Empathetic listeningis built on mutual respect and it shows that you’re paying attention to the speaker.

Here are some examples of empathic listening to help you understand:

1. Khyati’s teammate suddenly tells her that she wants to quit. Concerned, Khyati asks her why and if there’s something she can do to help. Her teammate expresses her concerns while Khyati listens patiently—without giving her advice.

1. Kiran finds it hard to speak up during meetings. She’s unable to get her points across and her colleague, Maya, notices this. Next time, Maya makes it a point to invite Kiran to speak without putting her on the spot.

1. Prakash enjoys working with his team so when his manager moves him to a different floor, he expresses his disappointment. His team member finds an opportunity to convince their manager to let him continue working on the same floor as them.

Each of these examples of empathetic listening shows that you have to listen before you react, make assumptions or make judgments. What the speaker needs is a chance to express their feelings and emotions. Not only will this help you understand others but encourage positive interactions at work.

What Is Empathetic Listening?

At its core, empathetic listening is about connection. Empathetic listening is what happens when you deliberately slow things down and seek to understand others’ inner worlds. It means taking in what another person is saying—or not saying—with the intent to understand and relate to them on a human level.

It’s similar to its counterpart, active listening, in that both kinds of listening require giving your full attention to another person in order to better understand them. But unlike active listening, empathetic listening puts a special emphasis on understanding the other person’s emotional experience. Where active listening may readily result in a list of action items, empathetic listening is focused on a stronger connection among teammates and a clearer understanding of another person’s needs, motivations, and perceptions. [Sure, this information can also help you get to a better to-do list or set of action items, but these would be the byproducts of building a stronger relationship with someone, rather than the first-level goal.]

Empathetic listening asks you to go beyond the surface of what is being said to unpack why and how it’s being said and get to know someone’s emotional experience—and empathize with it. This kind of listening goes beyond the literal, and even beyond the subtext of what’s been said, to the emotion beneath it.

Through empathetic listening, you can create a space in which others feel safe being themselves, laying the foundation for open and honest communication between both the speaker and the listener.

The Benefits of Empathic Listening

Empathic listening [also called active listening or reflective listening] is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding and trust. It is an essential skill for third parties and disputants alike, as it enables the listener to receive and accurately interpret the speaker's message, and then provide an appropriate response. The response is an integral part of the listening process and can be critical to the success of a negotiation or mediation. Among its benefits, empathic listening

1. builds trust and respect,
2. enables the disputants to release their emotions,
3. reduces tensions,
4. encourages the surfacing of information, and
5. creates a safe environment that is conducive to collaborative problem solving.

Though useful for everyone involved in a conflict, the ability and willingness to listen with empathy is often what sets the mediator apart from others involved in the conflict.

Even when the conflict is not resolved during mediation, the listening process can have a profound impact on the parties. Jonathon Chace, associate director of the U.S. Community Relations Service, recalls a highly charged community race-related conflict he responded to more than 30 years ago when he was a mediator in the agency's Mid-Atlantic office. It involved the construction of a highway that would physically divide a community centered around a public housing project. After weeks of protest activity, the parties agreed to mediation. In the end, the public officials prevailed and the aggrieved community got little relief. When the final session ended, the leader of the community organization bolted across the floor, clasped the mediator's hand and thanked him for being "different from the others."

"How was I different?" Chace asked. "You listened," was the reply. "You were the only one who cared about what we were saying."[1]

William Simkin, former director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and one of the first practitioners to write in depth about the mediation process, noted in 1971 that "understanding has limited utility unless the mediator can somehow convey to the parties the fact that [the mediator] knows the essence of the problem. At that point," he said, "and only then, can [the mediator] expect to be accorded confidence and respect."[2]

Simkin was writing about more than the need to understand and project an understanding of the facts. Understanding "is not confined to bare facts," he said. "Quite frequently the strong emotional background of an issue and the personalities involved may be more significant than the facts." He suggested that mediators apply "sympathetic understanding,"[3] which in reality is empathic listening.

7 Tips for Empathic Listening

1. Be nonjudgmental.

This isn’t always easy, but letting go of your own opinions frees you to focus on the other person’s perspective. Acknowledging a person’s views and emotions helps you to help them. This doesn’t mean you need to agree with everything the person says; it’s about letting them know you care, that they matter.

2. Give the person your undivided attention.

Remove distractions. Ensure that you have the time to spend with the person, and make sure no computers or other devices are between you and them. Giving them your full focus displays respect, and a person is more likely to stay calm when they feel respected.

3. Listen carefully [to feelings and facts].

Soak in the words as well as the larger view of that individual in that specific situation. Notice tone of voice, body language, and other clues to go beyond the words and gain insight into emotions. I love how Kim Warchol describes Empathic Listening when she says, “Listen with your ears, eyes, and heart.”

4. Show that you are listening carefully.

Think about your posture and nonverbal messages. Pepper in supportive body language like eye contact, nodding, and other signals as appropriate to advertise your attentiveness without interrupting.

5. Don’t be afraid of silence.

Sometimes all a person needs is to be heard or know you’re there. Pay attention to the context and quality of the silence before responding. The individual might be thinking about what to say next or may need a few silent moments to rein in emotions.

6. Restate and paraphrase.

If you speak, refer to the person’s words, ask questions, and clarify comments as needed. Keep that nonjudgmental and respectful spirit, and give the person time to respond. Remember, there’s no script for Empathic Listening. Respond based on that person, situation, and moment.

7. Follow up.

Check with the person to see if they have further questions or comments. Set up another time to meet if needed.

What are ways you listen in your day-to-day life? Which strategies work best for you?

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General Listening Types:

The two main types of listening - the foundations of all listening sub-types are:

• Discriminative Listening
• Comprehensive Listening

Discriminative Listening

Discriminative listening is first developed at a very early age – perhaps even before birth, in the womb. This is the most basic form of listening and does not involve the understanding of the meaning of words or phrases but merely the different sounds that are produced. In early childhood, for example, a distinction is made between the sounds of the voices of the parents – the voice of the father sounds different to that of the mother.

Discriminative listening develops through childhood and into adulthood. As we grow older and develop and gain more life experience, our ability to distinguish between different sounds is improved. Not only can we recognise different voices, but we also develop the ability to recognise subtle differences in the way that sounds are made – this is fundamental to ultimately understanding what these sounds mean. Differences include many subtleties, recognising foreign languages, distinguishing between regional accents and clues to the emotions and feelings of the speaker.

Being able to distinguish the subtleties of sound made by somebody who is happy or sad, angry or stressed, for example, ultimately adds value to what is actually being said and, of course, does aid comprehension. When discriminative listening skills are combined with visual stimuli, the resulting ability to ‘listen’ to body-language enables us to begin to understand the speaker more fully – for example recognising somebody is sad despite what they are saying or how they are saying it.

Example

Imagine yourself surrounded by people who are speaking a language that you cannot understand. Perhaps passing through an airport in another country. You can probably distinguish between different voices, male and female, young and old and also gain some understanding about what is going on around you based on the tone of voice, mannerisms and body language of the other people. You are not understanding what is being said but using discriminative listening to gain some level of comprehension of your surroundings.

Comprehensive Listening

Comprehensive listening involves understanding the message or messages that are being communicated. Like discriminative listening, comprehensive listening is fundamental to all listening sub-types.

In order to be able use comprehensive listening and therefore gain understanding the listener first needs appropriate vocabulary and language skills. Using overly complicated language or technical jargon, therefore, can be a barrier to comprehensive listening. Comprehensive listening is further complicated by the fact that two different people listening to the same thing may understand the message in two different ways. This problem can be multiplied in a group setting, like a classroom or business meeting where numerous different meanings can be derived from what has been said.

Comprehensive listening is complimented by sub-messages from non-verbal communication, such as the tone of voice, gestures and other body language. These non-verbal signals can greatly aid communication and comprehension but can also confuse and potentially lead to misunderstanding. In many listening situations it is vital to seek clarification and use skills such as reflection aid comprehension.

What Is Empathic Listening?

Empathic listening is the process of making an emotional connection with someone who is speaking. This enables you to put yourself into their shoes, and feel with them—the definition of empathy.

It is therefore an extension of active listening, but requires a conscious and much stronger focus on feelings. Crucially, empathic listening gives the speaker space to feel heard and validated. It is therefore perhaps more of a therapeutic technique than active listening, which is more about supporting good two-way communication.

The main aim of empathic listening is usually to provide support or encouragement to the speaker.

This therefore sets it apart from other forms of active listening, where the goal is to understand the communication and respond in whatever way seems most appropriate.

However, this does not mean that empathic listening is only for therapeutic situations. It can be extremely useful at work for ensuring that you fully understand a situation, both facts and feelings, and actively showing that you have heard, understood and accepted someone’s message.

Empathic listening and time

Perhaps more than any other form of listening, empathic listening takes time.

When you are engaging in empathic listening, you have identified that the speaker may be processing emotions, and needs you to be emotionally engaged. This is unlikely to be a rapid process.

It is therefore important that you clear your mind, including your mental calendar or ‘to do’ list to give the other person that time.

This may not be convenient—but emotions are not always convenient in their timing, and sometimes you need to provide support more than you need to make that phone call, or go to that meeting.