5.1: The Importance of Listening

 

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• identify the stages of the listening process (receiving, interpreting, recalling, evaluating, responding).
• distinguish among the four main types of listening (discriminative, informational, critical, empathetic).
• demonstrate active listening by using back-channel cues and paraphrasing to confirm understanding in conversations.
• analyze messages using critical listening to separate facts from opinions and spot common biases or weak evidence.
• recognize common barriers to effective listening (e.g., noise, multitasking, personal bias) and apply strategies like note-taking and mental bracketing to reduce them.

In our sender-oriented society, listening is often overlooked as an important part of the communication process. Yet research shows that adults spend about 45% of their time listening, which is more than any other communicative activity. In some contexts, we spend even more time listening than that. On average, workers spend 55% of their workday listening, and managers spend about 63% of their day listening, according to Owen Hargie in his book Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice.

Listening is a primary means through which we learn new information, which can help us meet instrumental needs as we learn things that help us complete certain tasks at work or school and get things done in general. The act of listening to our relational partners provides support, which is an important part of relational maintenance and helps us meet our relational needs. Listening to what others say about us helps us develop an accurate self-concept, which can help us more strategically communicate for identity needs in order to project to others our desired self. Overall, improving our listening skills can help us be better students, better relational partners, and more successful professionals. Stronger listening skills can make a person wiser about the world that surrounds them. 

Understanding how listening works provides the foundation we need to explore why we listen, including various types and styles of listening. In general, listening helps us achieve communication goals: physical, instrumental, relational, and identity. Listening is also important in academic, professional, and personal contexts.

In terms of academics, poor listening skills were shown to contribute significantly to failure in a person’s first year of college (Zabaya and Wolvin, 215–17). In general, students with high scores for listening ability have greater academic achievement. Interpersonal communication skills including listening are also highly sought after by potential employers, consistently ranking in the top ten in national surveys, according to the 2011 “Job Outlook” published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Poor listening skills, lack of conciseness, and inability to give constructive feedback have been identified as potential communication challenges in professional contexts. Even though listening education is lacking in our society, research has shown that introductory communication courses provide important skills necessary for functioning in entry-level jobs, including listening, writing, motivating/persuading, interpersonal skills, informational interviewing, and small-group problem-solving (DiSalvo, 283–90). Training and improvements in listening will continue to pay off as employers desire employees with good communication skills, and employees who have good listening skills are more likely to get promoted.

Listening also has implications for our personal lives and relationships. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of listening to make someone else feel better and to open our perceptual field to new sources of information. Empathetic listening can help us expand our self- and social awareness by learning from other people’s experiences and by helping us take on different perspectives. Emotional support in the form of empathetic listening and validation during times of conflict can help relational partners manage common stressors of relationships that may otherwise lead a partnership to deteriorate (Milardo and Helms-Erikson, 37).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Copy and Paste Caption here. (Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash)

The following list reviews some of the main functions of listening that are relevant in multiple contexts:

• to focus on messages sent by other people or noises coming from our surroundings,
• to better our understanding of other people’s communication,
• to critically evaluate other people’s messages,
• to monitor nonverbal signals,
• to indicate that we are interested or paying attention,
• to empathize with others and show we care for them (relational maintenance), and
• to engage in negotiation, dialogue, or other exchanges that result in shared understanding of or agreement on an issue.

In short, listening isn’t a passive pause between speaking turns—it’s the active engine that moves learning, work, and relationships forward. When we listen well, we absorb ideas we can act on, offer the kind of support that strengthens our connections, and refine our sense of self through honest feedback. Employers reward it, classmates rely on it, and our closest partners feel it. As you continue through this chapter, treat listening as a skill you can train: notice the cues you receive, test your understanding with paraphrases and questions, and watch how small changes—less multitasking, more presence—pay off in clearer thinking and stronger trust. If speaking is how we’re seen, listening is how we truly understand; mastering both is what makes communication work.