Order Number |
23434092 |
Type of Project |
ESSAY |
Writer Level |
PHD VERIFIED |
Format |
APA |
Academic Sources |
10 |
Page Count |
3-12 PAGES |
Active listening helps us communicate effectively with others and resolve conflicts. However, distractions such as mobile devices and emails may impact our ability to actively listen to our colleagues. Why is active listening an important skill in the workplace? Select one option below and thoroughly explain its importance. Feel free to share any active listening strategies you have learned about.
Building professional relationships
Decreasing misunderstandings
Increasing productivity
Active listening is an important skill, especially when it comes to decreasing misunderstanding in the workplace for several reasons. Firstly, in the workplace, when your supervisor or boss, or co-worker is speaking, and you do not use your active listening skills, the consequences could lead to a reprimand, suspension, and in some cases, termination.
Imagine that your supervisor has set aside thirty minutes to explain a new policy or procedure to her team that the employer said must be implemented immediately.
The whole time while the supervisor is explaining the change, you are checking your emails, or sending a text, falling to sleep, or daydreaming. This new rule will go into effect directly after the meeting; you break as soon as you get back to the desk. The supervisor then has to take more time to pull you away to ask you why you just broke the new rule that they just went over. What would your response be?
I did not hear you say that, or I misunderstood? That would definitely show your supervisor and the owner that you did not care enough to pay attention to the presentation. At this point, because you were not actively listening, you would be looked at differently, at least for a while, and that is if the rule you broke does not cost you your job.
Also, not using your active listening skill can cause riffs
between you and your co-workers in the workplace. For example, a group
of your peers is speaking about an issue or a co-worker and giving them
individual points of view. Workplace gossip is not good, but we all
know it happens.
You are in the group, nodding in agreement with the
gossipers, but your mind is completely on something else. After this
pow-wow session, the pieces of the conversation you managed to remember,
you regurgitate to other co-workers.
However, you have tangled up the
conversation and ad-libbed what you believed was said. Suddenly, the
information you said to people has gotten back to the person your group
of peers was discussing, but it is all wrong, and the target of the
conversation has gone to HR to report your friends.
In this situation,
though, we should refrain from gossip, pay attention and keep it to
ourselves if we engage in gossip.
Lastly, actively listening in the workplace can help you
further your career path. When positions are available, and an
interview is one of the requirements, we need to use all of us
listening skills to ask pertinent questions.
This will let us know how
and when to pivot if it becomes necessary. In this circumstance, it is
good to show that we are actively listening by sitting erect, looking
the person we are speaking to in the eyes, and showing them that we
understand what they are saying.
We can also show we are really
listening by restating and asking clarifying questions in our own
words. Honestly, we should not interrupt the speaker until they have
finished speaking. Productivity and promotions are sure to follow if we
follow these simple rules of active listening.