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Listening
Listening with Empathy WhyDoes it Matter?NOVEMBER 2, 2012 b y DR. JON WARNER in LISTENING
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Mother Teresa o nce said: Kind words can be short
and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
In other words, the extent to which we listen to o thers
well before we speak and establish genuine em pathy
and rapport is what we should always be striving to
do. In this way our words will be wiser and will echo
for longer in positive ways on the person to whom we
are speaking. Listening with empathy cons equently
becomes a critical skill, especially for leaders, and we
need to practice it a lot mo re often than we think wehave the time to do. There are 5 particular steps which
everyone can take to becom e a mo re empathetic
listener:
1. Acknowledge the o ther perso ns f eelings
and concerns
Naturally, mos t people wo uld prefer to be listened to
by a person who is warm and attentive than som eone
who is cold and dis tant. We should therefore always
try to o bserve and identify the feelings o f the other
person (e.g. happy, angry, confused, sad, scared) and
the strength of feeling (e.g. strong or weak). We can
then mo re appropriately find a few words that capture
the essence of what the other person is feeling, for
example, I sense that you are really annoyed o r
you appear to be a little sad. Use these words as a
respons e to check how accurately you are perceiving
the other person. Feedback from the speaker may
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confirm your perception, Yes, thats exactly how I
feel, o r it may indicate that your perception needs to
be mo dified. For example the other person m ight say:
Thats not quite right , I feel very angry and frustrated .
2. Accept the other persons experience as
real and important by having a positive and
encouraging at titude
Any goo d listener needs to have a pos itive and
accepting attitude to what is being said. They need to
sho w that they are relating to what is being s aid. They
sho w s ensitivity by indicating that they accept the
other persons standpoint even if they may not agree
with it. Hence by trying to understand what the
speaker has been s aying at the level they have
expressed it and by showing that you understand and
accept the speakers feelings and experience, you will
be able to encourage people to open up theirexperiences to you mo re fully.
3. Be sensitive to your own reactions and
f ocus on understanding the speakers
message
Carefully check yourself o ut as a listener by taking
note of your own emotional reactions when
someone is talking with you or offering his or her
feedback. Ask yourself:Are you being focused, tuned
in and interested or are you showing too muchindifference? Are you being impatient? Are you
switching off when complex or difficult topics arise?
Are you reacting to emotional words that have a
particular meaning for you? Does your pulse rate or
breathing rate increase when keratin subjects are
raised with you?
Most impo rtantly we need to keep our o wn emotio ns
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under control so that we can focus o n understanding
the speakers thoughts and feelings. A speaker may
express their feelings verbally and directly or i ndirectly
through his or her tone of voice, body language or
jus t by describing a s ituation . If you get o ver excited
emotionally you may miss the cues or even lose the
point.
4. Show a willingness t o understand t he otherperson by walking in their shoes
In order to respo nd to a speakers feelings you need
to have a good understanding of how the situation is
being experienced by the speaker. Empathy is a way
of respo nding to another persons feelings. You
sho uld therefore ideally ask yo urself: If I were the
speaker and I were doing and saying these things,
how would I feel? Put yourself in the s peakers
place. Try to see what is being said through their
eyes. Understand the speakers values and attitudes.
Empathy som etimes gets linked with sympathy but
the two are very different. Sympathy means sharing in
the feeling being experienced by the another person
and sho wing compas sio n. Empathy, on the other
hand, involves putting yourself into another persons
sho es to try to understand how they experience a
situation from within their world. Listen for the
speakers emotional meaning as well as to content.
Hence, in summary, a sympathetic response wo uld
be: I feel what you are feeling, and an empatheticresponse would be: I understand how you are feeling,
and an apathetic response would be: I dont care how
you feel.
5. Develop a positive relationship with the
speaker by mirroring his or her gestures (e.g.
voice rate, vocabulary, facial expressions ,
favorite phrases)
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A very useful way to engage in empathetic listening is
to build your relations hip with the speaker by focusing
very carefully on what he or she is both doing and
saying. Observe and (within reason) m irror the
actions and expressio ns o f the speaker. This
technique is called pacing and can be used to help the
speaker feel at ease. Pacing involves imi tating or
mirroring the s peakers breathing, voice rate and
volume, vocabulary and even facial expressio ns. You
can match the speakers behavior by speeding up o r
slowing down your voice, using the same words and
phrases, using s imilar gestures and even breathing at
the same rate. The speaker will notice the similarities
and feel more com fortable. You will build rapport by
sho wing that you are actively listening. Once again,
be patient as this requires practice.
Summary
The word empathy comes from the Greek noun
empatheia , meaning passion, orempathes , meaning
emo tional. Empathy can therefore be said to be the
act of understanding, being aware of, being s ensitive
to, and to experience feelings, thoughts, and
experience of another. In other words and es pecially
from a listening perspective, rather than considering
only your o wn feelings and thoughts when you talk
with som eone, to feel true empathy you need to s hift
your focus o f attention strongly toward the other
person and genuinely hear not o nly what they aresaying in wo rds, but where they are really coming
from. The more that you can apply as many o f the
above steps as possible, the more likely this will
happen in all of your future conversations.
Related Resources
Listening Skills: An RSB Bo oklet (PDF)
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Listening Skills: An RSB PowerPoint Workshop Kit
with Video
Listening Effectiveness (Online)
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About Dr. Jon Warner
Dr. Jo n Warner is a prolific author,
management consultant and
executive coach with over 25 years
experience. He has an MBA and a
PhD in Organisational Psycholo gy.
Jon is Editor-in-chief ofReadyToManage, Inc. and can be
reached at
View all posts by Dr. Jon Warner
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