4.1: Prelude to the Importance of Listening

“Are you listening to me?”

This question is often asked because the speaker thinks the listener is nodding off or daydreaming—or perhaps hasn’t looked up from an ever-present phone. We sometimes think that listening means we only have to sit back, remain minimally conscious, and let a speaker’s words wash over us. While many Americans look upon being active as something to admire, to engage in, and to excel at, listening is often understood as a passive activity. However, as one CEO learned the hard way, listening is a crucial element to the success of a company’s ecosystem—and it should be an active process (Bryant & Sharer, 2021). Many leaders exist in an echo chamber, and so creating structures for active listening by which a team feels heard is imperative. As you can imagine, good listening is also key for social and intimate interactions. When you are having a conversation with a good listener, you are likely to feel validated and affirmed in the relationship, and you might also experience more open-mindedness and a broadened perspective (Itzchakov et al., 2021).

You may have heard the adage, “We have two ears but only one mouth”—an easy way to remember that listening can be twice as important as talking. As a student, you most likely spend many hours in a classroom doing a large amount of focused listening, yet sometimes it is difficult to apply those efforts to communication in other areas of your life. Or perhaps you find focused listening in the classroom difficult given the draw of phone or laptop. College students spend more than half of their daily communication engaged in listening (Emanuel et. al., 2008). Nonetheless, your listening skills may not be all they could be. In this chapter, we will examine listening versus hearing, listening styles, listening difficulties, listening stages, and listening critically.