You could improve the way you communicate through active listening. By communication better with others, you make friends, improve your leadership skills, and get things done. Many individuals lack active listening skills, but they are not difficult to acquire. There is nothing wrong with focusing on a set of goals, provided you do not do so to exclusion of listening to others, whose perhaps different viewpoints on the subject could facilitate your achieving those goals.

Active listening also promotes teamwork, as your teammates feel more at ease working with you, are motivated to work, and to be creative, the new ideas generated potentially valuable in the team achieving the set objectives. Active listening is therefore an essential personal development and leadership attribute to have. No doubt, active listening could be a hindrance in emergencies, for example, where prompt action could be life saving. You need therefore, to recognize when and when not to deploy your active listening skills.

In fostering collaboration, active listening promotes the ideals of democracy, enhances performance, fosters a sense of ownership, enables delegation, and empowers everyone involved in any initiative. Active listening makes people feel their contributions matter, and encourages them to contribute even more to achieving the goals set out by the team or the organization with which they work. On the other hand, not listening to others discourages them from further active involvement or commitment to achieving the goals.

When people stop listening to each other, for example, during an intense argument, all they do is aggravate each other emotionally and physiologically, with damaging consequences for their health. What is more, they achieve nothing as neither was really listening to the other. Active listening is therefore a skill that is useful in any interaction with another person, regardless of whether at home or at work, or between spouses, parents and their children, or between co-workers. Decide now, therefore, to become an active listener. It might take some time to acquire the skills and use them effectively, but the efforts in so doing are well worth it.

Start by observing others during communication. You would not only discover some of your shortcomings, but also appreciate the variety of ways that others communicate, and their good and bad points. For examples, some might be condescending, others domineering in conversations. Some might use expressive body language, others in very subtle manner, or not at all. Some might interrupt others quite frequently, while others seem distracted. With this background experience, and that of the consequences of these different communication styles on the individuals involved or your perception of the success or otherwise of their encounter, you are ready to apply some recognized approaches to active listening.

-Maintain focus on the speaker’s statements, without staring relentlessly, and respond appropriately afterwards. That appropriate response despite your silence during the speech is an indication of your focus, which the speaker would appreciate.

-Use body language to indicate focus and acknowledge the speaker’s perspectives. You could nod, although not incessantly, which the speaker might interpret as mockery, or something else, shift position, again not too often, maintain appropriate eye contact, and even summarize what the speaker said in a sentence or two in your response.

-As a further step in summarizing what the speaker said, you could actually, analyze it, providing explanations of your understanding of the speech or statements, fostering a lively, healthy discussion that would engage others. You should also ask appropriate and open-ended questions, which show that you really want to know more, not embarrass the speaker. “Tell me more about…” “How do you feel about…” are appropriate questions that are unlikely to result in a yes or no answer.

-Show some empathy. By indicating that you are able to put yourself in the speaker’s shoes, giving examples of your own related to the speaker’s experience, you are not just showing that you listened actively to the speaker, but also your humanity, which would endear to all, fostering new friendships.

-Provide constructive criticisms if necessary. Be polite, specific, and address actions, not the person. However, you do not have to criticize all the time. You may find it unnecessary, in which case do not do it.

-Finally, active listening is active. You should listen and indicate that you are listening, and even after the speech spend some time gathering your thoughts on the appropriate response, rather than reacting based on preconceived and perhaps wrong ideas. By listening actively, you are concentrating on what the speaker is saying. You would then have the correct information, hence be able to give the correct response.