A Good Listener

Being a good listener can help you to see the world through other’s point of view. It improves your knowledge and increases your capability of understanding. It also widens your connection with the outer world by helping you expand your communication abilities. Good listening skills can offer you with a deeper level of understanding about somebody’s situation, and helps in understanding which words are best to use at specific situations and which ones to avoid.

Listening is considered as critical employee and management skill which helps one become a well- rounded candidate who can be employed or promoted.

Good listening abilities are essential for professional success, organizational efficiency and satisfaction. Several studies and specialists report that good listeners make good leaders and that they improve more quickly in their organizations. Listening is mainly significant in the workplace because we spend so much time putting effort into it. Workers spend different time listening depending on their post, such as

Type of workers	Communication time spent on listening (%)
Employees	30-45
Officials or Executives	60-70

But the study shows that, a normal person pays attention with only 25 percent efficiency, which means that we are allowing a lot of information that can be important to be missed by not paying attention (According to Huffington post).

A website called Queendom, offers a listening skills test which lets us know how good of a listener we are. It examines us on certain statements and situations by letting us choose the option that best applies to us. Being truthful in this test will let you know how efficient you are while listening by the test scores.

To become a good listener and pay attention, one must be totally involved in the conversation.

1. Use neutral words, such as “I see,” “Go on,” “I understand,” “Yes.
2. Gestures like nodding your head or smiling can be helpful.
3. Make attempts “echoing” or basically rephrasing what somebody just said to make yourself attentive. 
4. Ask questions.

All this would be helpful to make yourself get involved into the discussion and make it interesting. Getting involved like this can also make others realize how efficiently you are listening and understanding what is being said, which will leave a good impact on others. Active listening is also a manner of showing concern for attendants and implies to further assurance and trust.

Sources:

•  How to Be a Good Listener. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2015.
•  Holmes, L. (n.d.). 9 Things Good Listeners Do Differently. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
• 10 Ways to Be a Better Listener: Good Listeners: Customer Service Training. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2015.