Welcome to your How Good a Listener Are You?
1. I listen for feelings, attitudes, values and perceptions as well as for the facts.
2. I try to listen for what is not said.
3. I avoid interrupting the person who is speaking to me.
4. I actually pay attention to what is being said as against ‘faking’ attention.
5. I refrain from ‘tuning people out’ because I don’t like them, disagree with them, find the dull etc.
6. I work hard to avoid being distracted from what is being said by the speaker’s mannerisms, style, clothing, voice quality/pace etc.
7. I make certain that a person’s status has no bearing on how well I listen to them.
8. I avoid letting my expectations (hearing what I want to hear) determine or influence my listening behaviour.
9. I try to read the speaker’s non-verbals – inflections, gestures, posture, mood, eye contact, facial expression etc.
10. I work hard at overcoming distractions (sounds, noises, movement, outside scenes etc) that may interfere with listening.
11. I tend to ‘stay with’ speakers who may be hard to follow (slow speakers/ those whose ideas are poorly organised/tend to repeat themselves).
12. As a listener, I use non-verbal signals (eye contact, nodding, smile etc.) to indicate that I wish to hear more.
13. I tend to restate/rephrase the other person’s statements where necessary so that they will know that I understand.
14. If I have not understood, I candidly admit to this and ask for a re-statement.
15. I avoid framing my response to what is said while the other person is still speaking.
