Listen Empathically

The ability to listen is vital to effective interpersonal communication. You will be amazed how much deposit you make into the speaker's emotional bank account when you truly listen to him or her.

There are various degrees or levels of listening ranging from ignoring, pretending to listen, selective listening (pick and choose), passive listening (with intent to reply) and active listening (paying attention to the words). All of these listening modes are within your own frame of reference; you have yet to see things from the other person's perspectives and feel what they are feeling.

Photo by Yolanda Sun on Unsplash

The highest form of listening to aim for is empathic listening where you listen with the intent to understand the speaker emotionally and intellectually as you immerse yourself in his world. 

According to communication experts, communication comprises Words (10%), Sounds/Tone of voice (30%) and Body language (60%).

With empathic listening, you pay attention not just to the words being spoken but also the emotion that goes with it plus the accompanying body language (e.g. facial expression and posture). You listen with your ears, eyes, mind and heart while suspending judgment and showing from your body language that you are paying rapt attention.

The following poem is an excellent illustration of our craving for empathic listening:

Please Just Listen - Poem by Jessie Swick

When I ask you to listen to me

And you start giving me advice, 

You have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me

And you begin to tell me why

I shouldn’t feel that way, 

You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me

And you feel you have to do something

To solve my problem, 

You have failed me, 

Strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask you is listen.

Don’t talk or do—just hear me.

Advice is cheap

And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.

Maybe discouraged ad faltering, 

But not helpless.

When you do something that I can

And need to do for myself, 

You contribute to my fear and

Inadequacy.

But when you accept as a simple fact

No matter how irrational, 

Then I can stop trying to convince

You and get about this business

Of understanding what’s behind

This irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are

Obvious and I don’t need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when

We understand what’s behind them.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works—because God is mute, 

And he doesn’t give advice or try

To fix things, 

God just listens and lets you work

it out for yourself.

So please listen, and just hear me.

And if you want to talk, wait a minute

For your turn—and I will listen to you. 

In his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey opined, 

"If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the filed of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication." 

Click here for Habit 5: Seek First to Understand Then to be Understood - Part E :Empathic Responses  

Click here for The Challenger Disaster: A Dramatic Lesson In The Failure To Communicate