The Five Fundamentals of Effective Listening
1. Attending to Nonverbal Behaviors – Your nonverbal behaviors tell the speaker you are either interested and comprehending what is being said or you are disinterested and would rather be somewhere else. Are you smiling and nodding in understanding or are you yawning, scowling, or staring the person down?
Is your body position leaning in to the conversation to show you are engaged or are you leaning back with your arms folded indicating you’re feeling defensive?
Your body language should communicate “Go ahead, I care, I’m listening.”
2. Asking Questions – The best leaders ask questions – lots of them.
But not all questions are created equal and different types of questions serve different purposes. Open-ended questions encourage the speaker to share more information and go deeper in the conversation. Clarifying questions help you understand the full context of what is being shared whereas prompting questions encourage the speaker to reflect deeper on their own thoughts.
Close-ended questions allow you to limit the conversation or find out specific information and leading questions allow you to bring the conversation to a close.
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