Career and Personal Development – Listening Skills
People who are hearing impaired can be great listeners, while those with very sharp hearing can be rather poor listeners. Hearing is not the same thing as listening; the latter means paying attention to the information a person conveys to another person. Simply put, listening skills allow people to understand and make sense of what others are talking about. Surely, it’s very important skill, but is listening really crucial for our career and personal development?
First of all, well developed listening skills can improve your performance at work. This is because people with good listening skills, compared to those who don’t listen very well, understand assignments better and know exactly what their boss expects from them. Furthermore, they show support for others and build rapport with clients, boss and colleagues because everybody craves understanding. In a team-based environment, listening skills are crucial for productivity and effectiveness. Finally, a good listener is able to uncover the true meaning of what customers, bosses and colleagues are saying.
There are some barriers to listening you should be aware of. For example, our own prejudices and biases, a short attention span, inability to hear someone due to background noises or because of a heavy foreign accent can decrease your ability to understand someone well. Also, when you’re angry, worried or afraid, your listening skills are usually worse. Among these roadblocks, prejudices and biases are surely the most difficult to conquer, but once you become aware of them, you’ll be closer to overcoming these obstacles. If, however, you cannot understand a speaker because of a foreign accent, you could ask them to speak more slowly. In case background noises are an issue, make sure you move to a quieter place.
Once you get rid of these barriers, in order to develop your career and personality, you should improve your listening skills. The fact is, most of us aren’t born with incredible listening skills and, even if you are, there are times you might engage in behaviors which make you appear to not be paying attention. If you want do develop your listening skills, yet don’t know where to start, I would highly recommend visiting this blog: https://bohenriksen.com/all-the-worlds-a-stage-how-actor-training-can-fast-track-you-to-your-dream-job-by-honing-your-listening-skills/. There, you’ll get useful, easy, step-by-step tips on accelerating your career by honing your listening skills. Have fun and make your dream job come true!
