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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

[email protected]

View all posts by Dr. Jon Warner

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