The term Empathic listening, active listening when we sincerely strive to understand others’ viewpoints, is a communication skill that can help one with building trust and relationships.
Read your classmates posts then respond to at least two classmates posts with insightful feedback and suggestions gained from the etextbook, articles, and your research.
Consider elements of professionalism, communication techniques, and taking cues in context of the situation. Read the 2 posts below and respond them.
The first post 1)
After gaining more knowledge from reading the blogs and watching the videos, empathic listening according to Stephen Covey means to “Seek first to understand, then to be understood..” Empathetic listeners do not just listen to what someone is saying but also connect their individual experiences to what the person is going through so they truly feel what the other is feeling and can respond in a better way. An effective way to employ mindful listening is to just listen carefully to what is being said rather than what you are going to say. This way you will be able to retain more information and understand more details. I believe that research indicates that many executives and employees are not very good at listening because they are in a rush to get things done or most people were never truly taught how to listen to people. I feel that sometimes executives and employees use selective listening because they only want to know the main points rather than 30 minutes of rambling. Listening is an important skill as it can help someone understand something better than they did before or even become closer to someone by connecting with them. I think some ways that workplace listening can be improved is making sure that everyone is on the same page consistently. I also think that businesses could implement training programs for listening skills, so the flow of information is smoother within the business. After reading and listening to the blogs I plan to practice my listening skills further with friends and family. An example of empathic listening is recently when my friend went through his first anxiety attack and when we were talking, I was able to use empathic listening because I could connect with him from personal experiences that I have personally gone through and respond to him in a way that he understood that he was ok and had support for him if needed.
Joey Harper -the second post 2)
After reading the blogs and watching the videos to further my knowledge on empathetic listening I concluded that being an empathetic listener is actively listening and emotionally connecting to another person during communication. Empathetic listeners are attentive and responsive to others’ input during conversation and listen carefully so they may offer a more heartfelt and genuine response (Indeed, 2021). There is research indicating that executives and employees aren’t good at listening. This may be because of a lack of soft skills. Soft skills are oral and written communication skills. These skills include active listening, business etiquette, and appropriate nonverbal behavior. If a person whether they are an executive or an employee does not possess soft skills then they are not capable of being a great listener. Some ways that workplace listening could be improved is offering guidelines during meetings. By offering some guidelines to help aid an employee’s understanding of listening skills and business etiquette you can help improve their soft skills needed in the business environment. Facilitating the meeting also means that everyone is included so everyone has a chance to listen and speak during the meeting. If facilitating the meeting or offering guidelines does not improve listening skills then you could offer workplace training in communication and active listening. By offering a brief training it may clarify the topic to the employees that previously did not understand it.
