Active Listening
Posted on November 12, 2024 by Srinath Ramakrishnan, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
What is Active Listening? What makes it important for coaches to be listening actively? What are the techniques required in Active Listening?
Listening is the most important component of interpersonal communication skills and essential for a coach. By paying close attention to both verbal and body language, Active listening is a technique that increases the understanding, rapport and trust between coach and the client.
Active listening involves listening with all senses. Active listeners should remain neutral and non-judgmental
Levels of Listening
The book “Coactive Coaching – New Skills for Coaching People for Success in Work and Life” talks of 3 different levels of listening
- Level 1 – Internal Listening – At Level I listening, the spotlight is on me, my thoughts, my feelings, my judgements. What does it mean to me – is the key aspect of Level 1 listening. The listening is through the filtered glass of how this conversation impacts me.
- Level 2 – Focussed Listening – At Level 2, the focus is on the speaker. You lean forward, listen with attention keeping an eye on their expressions and emotions. At Level 2, the impact of awareness is on the client. The coach listens with empathy. It is almost as if there is a wired connection between the coach and the client.
- Level 3 – Global Listening
When you listen at Level 3, your “antenna” goes up, aware of things around you, receiving information from the environment around you. Here, intuition plays an important part and listening includes even those you observe with your senses including emotional sensations.
Techniques required in Active listening
- Pay attention – Give the client your undivided attention, listening not just to what he/she says – but also his/her body language.
- Keep away from all distractions – such as switching off your cell phone, not looking at the watch, not fidgeting with your fingernails etc.
- Posture – Sit close to and lean towards the client in an attentive manner
- Eye contact – Make sure to make eye contact with the client, never intimidating him, but in a pleasing manner, nodding your head and smiling
- Use short words / sounds (such as Yes, right, I understand, ummm) to urge the client to continue
- Paraphrase what the person is saying – to reconfirm your understanding
- Probing or asking powerful questions – to draw the person out and get meaningful insights, but never interrupting the conversation
- Deliberate pauses / silences – to make him think and explore their thoughts and feelings
Active listening is a skill that can be acquired and developed with practice. However, active listening can be difficult to master – it takes time and patience to develop. As a coach, one can practise active listening by being engaged in the conversation, being “there” for the client paying full attention to what he/she says.
