Discover what active listening is and why it’s important in the workplace.
It goes without saying that communication is key – especially at work. But what if we told you that you could level up your communication capabilities by learning some active listening skills? This celebrated soft skill helps you become a more effective listener and team member, and allows you to tap into deeper connections.
In this guide, we’ll explore what active listening is, as well as give you some effective techniques and examples to help you at work – and in other areas of your life.
Active listening means you effectively understand what someone is saying in-depth, rather than simply listening on a surface level. You are listening because you want to fully understand what’s being said, and why it’s being said. It’s essentially the art of fully focussing on the meaning behind someone’s words, rather than using that time to think of what you want to say.
The technique of active listening is a soft skill, which means that it’s a non-technical skill used in the workplace – as opposed to coding, for example, which is a hard skill. Soft skills positively affect how you communicate and work with others, and can make you an all-round better employee (and person).
Active listening is one of the key communicative skills that can help you in the workplace. Not only can it help you become more considerate, but it always pays to show you fully understand the context of a situation – especially when engaging with clients or members of management.
Here are some of the main benefits of active listening:
Active listening techniques can be used in a range of different environments and scenarios. While we’re focussing on exploring why active listening is important at work, the skills you learn will be relevant across your interactions with people – whether professional or personal. The idea is to illustrate that you genuinely and fully understand what’s being said, which itself illustrates empathy.
Some examples of active listening skills include:
So, now you better understand how to use active listening techniques, next is knowing when. Here are a few practical examples of when you might need to put them into practice.
As a team leader or manager, it’s important to utilise your active listening skills when speaking to your line reports. This is especially useful when having 1-1 meetings, where employees might share personal issues and concerns. By being present and maintaining eye contact, you can illustrate you understand what they’re saying and feeling. Empathy is one of the most important qualities a line manager can have.
Even if you’re not a direct manager to someone, your fellow employees also expect you to support and understand them. Plus, practising active listening can also help strengthen your relationships with coworkers. Make sure to keep any distractions like phones away from the conversation, even if it’s tempting in a more informal setting.
The conversations you have with clients are among the most important you’ll have in the workplace. Because of this, active listening plays a key part in building rapport and trust between both parties. Engage in client conversations by asking the right questions, clarifying any discussion points and summarising topics clearly.
It’s important customers know you care. Active listening techniques can illustrate why a customer should rely on, and trust, you and your brand. Remember to maintain eye contact, keep your body towards them, and summarise their questions and concerns where necessary. Completely understanding their issue will also help you work towards a more effective solution.
Nobody is an expert at anything straight away. Even if you’re a good listener, active listening is a skill that you need to build upon. Here are some of our top tips for improving your techniques.
By maintaining eye contact, it shows you’re giving your undivided attention to that specific person. It illustrates focus, and that you’re not only listening, but keen to listen and understand. But remember, don’t be too intense. A key part of active listening is understanding how people are feeling, and if they feel uncomfortable under your gaze, it might be time to tone it down a little.
Asking detailed, open-ended questions illustrates that you have a confident understanding of what’s been said. It also encourages others to share their thoughts, and furthers the discussion in a natural way. Setting the groundwork for collaboration is key to building team relationships.
Remember to be aware of how you’re sitting or standing when engaging in active listening. You want to appear open and engaged, so always face the speaker. Simple gestures like smiling and nodding also show empathy and support, and are a good way to express your feelings while they’re talking.
Let’s be honest, sometimes you catch yourself waiting for someone to finish speaking so you can share your opinion. You spend the whole time thinking about what you’re going to say, and this may even creep out in a few interruptions – this is the opposite of how active listening works. You should give people time to fully share their thoughts, which also gives you time to fully grasp what’s being said.
Removing distractions like your phone is key to mastering active listening. You need to be wholly focused on the person in front of you in order to be present. This allows you the space to fully digest the subject at hand, while remaining respectful to the person speaking.
If you’re looking to brush up on your active listening skills, Adobe Express can help. Discover useful templates and listening aids to support your learning both in and outside of the workplace. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:
Whether you’re training your team on active listening, or just looking to share some tips with the wider office, a visually engaging infographic can help. Select a free infographic template that suits your business style, then add the key tips or things to consider when active listening.
You can share this over email, or pop it on a poster in meeting rooms and other communal areas to encourage people to maintain eye contact and ask open-ended questions.
This one can work well if you’re on a team building day or training session. Create your own dialogue cards and worksheets with conversation prompts, then get participants to practice their active listening skills in real-time. You could then discuss how people found the interactions, and revisit the activity at the end of the session.
Use Adobe Express’ free library of templates to build your own listening journal. When you’ve had a meeting or important discussion at work, you can then reflect on the conversation by answering different questions and see how actively you listened. Your questions might include:
If writing down a summary doesn’t work for you, you could use Adobe Express to map out a visual summary of your meetings or discussions instead. Use a mind map or concept map template to set out the key points discussed, then add your reflections and notes around how you actively listened and what the outcome of this was.
Looking to run a workshop on active listening? Adobe Express makes it easy for you to build your own presentation slides and videos for a virtual training session.
Start your presentation with a simple overview of what active listening is, then dive into key steps and examples. Add some active listening exercises at the end of your presentation to make it more interactive and actionable for your team.
The 7 key active listening skills that you should try and master are:
A bad example of active listening would be not giving the speaker your full attention. For example, you may appear distracted by looking at your phone, you may interrupt when you wish to speak, or you may not be supporting them with eye contact or positive body language.
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