So You Want To Be A Better Listener?
Whether you’re a coach, podcaster, going on first dates, or that friend everyone goes to for advice — you can always improve your listening skills.
Before I went to grad school for mental health counseling, friends and family members would say to me, “you’re such a great listener, you should be a counselor!” (No that’s not why I went to grad school, it takes more than positive reinforcement for me to make rash life decisions…)
In graduate school, they taught me a set of skills specifically designed to improve my ability to sit with, listen to, and understand a client. These are called “microskills,” and they are highly effective tools for creating a safe space, understanding a person’s story, and making them feel incredibly “listened to.”
Once I knew the “rules” of listening, I was immediately terrified to break them — my perfectionism and fear of saying the wrong thing was a major contributor to the eventual departure from my career as a counselor.
Since retiring (lol, I’m 31, let’s call it what it is) from being a therapist, I have let go of some of my neuroses around being the perfect listener. But I still sometimes catch myself in a specific mode of listening, afraid to go beyond the scope of what I’m comfortable with as a listener.
This got me thinking about people’s natural tendencies as listeners. I think we are all inherently skilled at listening in different ways, and what we bring to the table as a listener can be very helpful to someone who needs a person to talk to.
Still, we can all learn ways to be better listeners, and I doubt anyone wouldn’t want to improve their listening skills (unless you hate people and want them to never talk to you, in which case, do you!).
Individuals — whether trained in listening skills or not, have their own adapted skills as listeners. I have broken down my observations of these skills over my 31 years of life (no research guys, just observation and experience, so don’t freak out, it’s an idea not a scientific theory) into the “Four Listening Types.”
These types are based on people’s natural skills as listeners, but also fall into the categories that exist in the world of microskills and technical listening.
Before I dive into microskills, what they are, and how to use them, let’s talk about what I consider to be the “Four Listening Types.”
The Four Listening Types
The Fixer
“I Have Answers.”
Problem solving is your forte, and you don’t like to dwell on the negative.
STRENGTHS
You have a lot of wisdom, knowledge, and resources to offer. When someone is struggling, you immediately see ten ways out of the pain.
You are innovative, creative, and solution-oriented. You don’t focus on the negative or the problem, you focus on what can be improved and how to do it.
Your can-do attitude can be inspiring, uplifting, and provide hope for people who often feel like they don’t have the answers to their problems.
Because you are solution-oriented, you are skilled at getting people from point A to point B. People come to you for answers, and they get results. People feel like they can rely on you for movement, momentum, and goal accomplishment. This makes you excellent at helping people with career goals and life changes.
CHALLENGES
Because you are focused on the solution and not the problem, people can sometimes feel misunderstood or unheard when you jump so quickly to problem-solving.
This isn’t a dealbreaker for relationships, but it can be difficult to build trust with more sensitive or emotional people who need a little more “cushioning” and empathy before moving into the problem-solving stage.
WHAT TO WORK ON:
Practice offering validation, empathy, or understanding before offering any solutions. Statements like “I can see why that would be so hard,” or “that sounds really difficult, I can imagine doing this alone has been super hard” can help build a sense of alliance between you and the speaker.
Understanding statements like these can make who you are listening to feel heard, accepted, and safe. The chance of them implementing any of your suggestions that follow will skyrocket.
You can also try asking the person if they even want advice or feedback by saying, “do you need some suggestions or help with what to do, or do you just need an ear right now?” This will clear up immediately the type of listening they are looking for.
Keep offering the world your wisdom, your motivational skills are so valuable!
The Validator
“You Are Valid And I Won’t Try To Change You.”
“That sounds so difficult” is one of your favorite lines.
STRENGTHS:
You are the queen of saying, “That sounds really hard,” or “I can see why that would feel really difficult.”
You have a knack for really understanding what someone might be going through and letting them know their experience is valid.
You don’t focus on solutions or problem solving — instead your goal is to let the person know their reaction, emotions, or experience is normal, acceptable, and valid.
This makes you excellent at the initial phase of listening: you ensure that the person you are listening to feels understood, accepted, and validated.
Because you are a super validator, you build great trust between you and whoever is sharing with you. They believe you are a safe person to be a total wreck with, because you won’t criticize, minimize, or try to stop them from having their experience.
CHALLENGES:
You might struggle with what comes next, and often wonder “now that I’ve validated the crap out of this person, what do I say? What do I do?”
You might not feel comfortable with offering suggestions, feedback, or concerns for fear of making someone feel worse. You may struggle to ask hard questions out of fear that you’ll make the person feel worse than they already do.
You are likely very sensitive and can empathize deeply with others. You may struggle to separate someone’s experience from your own.
WHAT TO WORK ON:
A great skill for you to adopt so you can begin to expand upon your validating skills is asking “What type of support do you need right now?” After validating someone, you can take the pressure off yourself to solve the world’s problems and ask them what they need.
You’ll start to learn that different people need different types of support, and each person might need something different depending on the situation. Sometimes people don’t need extra validation, they just want some help making a decision. It’s ok to ask what people need so you can start to feel safe to actually offer suggestions, ask tough questions, or share your own experiences with the person talking to you.
I invite you to also practice asking questions to deepen your understanding of the other person. You are likely very sensitive, so this may seem scary, but because you are sensitive you will probably ask questions in a safe and gentle way so try to give yourself permission to try.
You can ask questions like, “what was that like for you?” or “do you have insight on what brought this on?” You can ask questions in a vague way so you don’t feel like you are interrogating or investigating in a way that feels unnatural.
The Digger
“Tell Me More.”
You are fascinated by people, and you want all the details, history, and backstory.
STRENGTHS:
You excel at deepening your understanding of others through thoughtful, considerate, and important questions.
Because you have a genuine curiosity about people — especially important people in your life — you really are interested in better understanding them.
You don’t just ask questions for the sake of asking questions — you really want to build an in depth, multifaceted, big-picture understanding of who you are listening to so you can better empathize, relate to, or appreciate their standpoint.
You know what kinds of questions to ask to pull out insight, discovery, and exploration in the person you are listening to. Because of this, people might feel like they learn alot about themselves when they talk to you. You might ask questions people are never asked, which leads them to self-discovery and insight they might not normally encounter.
People who share their inner worlds with you are excited by your “probing nature” and like the depth the two of you get to in your conversations.
CHALLENGES:
Some people may not respond well to a lot of questioning and may feel interrogated by your approach to listening. This might lead some people to become defensive or put more walls up when talking to you.
You may find it difficult to simply listen without saying or asking anything. You are so curious about everything that your urge to ask “why” may override your ability to actually empathize.
You might struggle to offer support, validation, or empathy without knowing everything, so you may find it difficult to be supportive when you don’t know all the details.
WHAT TO WORK ON:
You are already great at going deep, so your work will be on pulling back. I invite you to try validating the person you are listening to before asking any questions. You can try statements like, “I can imagine this is really hard for you right now” or “I can tell you’re going through a lot and I can tell how rough it is for you.”
You might also want to try asking the person you are listening to what type of conversation they are hoping to have or what they need from you before beginning the conversation. You can ask something like, “I’m here for you however you need me — do you want me just to listen or do you want to explore whatever comes up more deeply?”
Some people just need someone to listen and say nothing so they can get their feelings out in the open, and aren’t looking for answers or discovery. If you know that off the bat, your challenge will be to honor that request and simply be a person next to them, offering an ear.
Keep asking the tough questions, your curiosity is helping others get invaluable insight!
The Relator
“I Get It Babe, I’ve Been There!”
You see yourself in everyone, and you love to converse and bounce things off of other people.
STRENGTHS:
Because you can relate to so many people, you find it easy to empathize with others. You can immediately identify what someone is experiencing because chances are, you’ve been there too.
You have a knack for “being on the same team” as the person who is talking to you. Rather than play the devil’s advocate or tell someone they’re wrong, you play the role of “I’ve got your back.”
Because of your ability to relate to and side with people who are talking to you, people feel connected to you and like they can trust you. People likely aren’t afraid you will judge, correct, or shame them for their experiences. Your relateability (why this isn’t a dictionary-approved word is beyond me) makes you a safe haven for anyone who talks to you.
Additionally, your ability to tap into your own experiences as resources while listening makes you primed for putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and knowing the pain or challenges they are facing.
CHALLENGES:
Sometimes being so relatable takes you out of the “expert” zone and into the “friendzone.” Because you likely share your own stories and experiences with people who share with you, you become such an equal to them that they see you as a friend more than someone they can confide in or come to for support.
While this isn’t the end of the world, it could damage a coaching or therapeutic relationship, because if you are perceived as this person’s friend, the ability to go much deeper than “me too!” may feel out of reach.
You may also struggle with interrupting or changing topics quickly, which may cause the person sharing with you to feel unheard or unsafe. Your excitement to share your own experiences may lead the person to feel as though their attempts to reach out for support or an ear are trumped by your desire to tell your own stories.
WHAT TO WORK ON:
I invite you to practice tuning down the amount of sharing you do when playing the role of listener. Take stock of the balance in your conversations when someone has come to you needing to share something, and start to notice if you’re sharing as much, or more than they are.
It will be helpful for you to start replacing some of your own experiences with questions or validating statements. Try asking the person how they felt about their experience, rather than telling them how you felt when you had a similar experience. Try saying “I can totally see why that would suck” rather than saying how something similar sucked for you.
Finally, start to observe whether you interrupt or finish people’s sentences in conversation. Your eagerness shows a lot of interest, and it can also cause you to jump in before the person has finished talking.
Keep on building connections with others, the world needs more empathy and you’re the key!
(you can take my quiz to find out your listening type here)
How To Implement Microskills
Not all of us are counselors or in the helping profession, so it’s not necessarily our goal to listen the way a counselor might. Still, we may want to enjoy stronger relationships, improve our interviewing skills, or feel confident we are able to offer a supportive ear to those in need.
The Four Phases of Microskills
I consider there to be “phases” of microskills, in which there is a progression from one state of listening to another. These are: Attending, Understanding, Confronting, and Action (SulRoss University, n.d.).
Theoretically, these phases happen sequentially in a conversation, though not always. Not all four things have to happen for good listening to occur, nor do they have to move in sequence. But for the sake of learning and beginning, I encourage people to consider them as sequential.
Within these phases are specific microskills that can be employed to achieve “success” within the categories. These skills range from body language, to open ended questions, to education.
In my experience, most people are quite skilled at the confronting and action phases of listening, but lack skill or expertise in the attending and understanding phases.
This is likely because confronting and action is what was modeled for us, either as kiddos or in our culture. For this same reason, when people dive deep into their “listening practice,” they may feel ashamed or wrong for being someone who tends to “fix” or look for solutions as a listener.
It is my belief that there is no right or wrong way to listen — all ways of listening are powerful, necessary, and valuable. The fact that you are even willing to listen at all is of tremendous valor.
Still, there are ways to enhance and bolster your inherent “listening type,” and my hope is to give you useful information about the attending and understanding phases so you can do just that.
Microskills for Phase One and Two: Attending and Understanding
These skills are all geared towards building trust and better understanding. They are designed to improve your ability to sit with someone and create a safe place for them to explore, as well as let them know you are fully comprehending what they’re discussing.
These tools are not designed to confront, challenge, or change the person’s behavior, emotions, or thoughts — those are advanced therapeutic microskills that I won’t be diving into here.
These phases are all about building an alliance. The goal in these phases is to build trust and create a feeling of “we are on the same team.” This phase is essential if you expect anyone to respond well to questions, confrontation, feedback, or problem-solving.
Rapport
Rapport is all about building trust. Think of this as the “dating” phase of any good relationship —if you’re already friends/close with the person you are listening to, chances are you already have brilliant rapport.
If you are listening to someone for the first time, rapport is essential. Building rapport is about showing the person “I’m on your team”. Rapport building is the time to be supportive and validating, not the time to confront or challenge the person you are listening to.
Ways to Build Rapport:
Have a friendly demeanor: smile, show interest, lean in.
Validate: let the person know you think what they are feeling or thinking is valid, acceptable, and understandable (whether you agree or not).
Remember their name, and use it!
Attending Behaviors
Attending behaviors are all about non-verbal cues. While you might not realize it, body language accounts for the majority of success in alliance-building (Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors, 2019; SulRoss University, n.d).
How to Practice Attending Behaviors
Body language: practice sitting with your legs uncrossed, and try facing and leaning towards the person you are listening to.
Face mirroring: if the person is smiling while they talk, smile too. If they are frowning, frown too. If the person who is talking to you is crying, I wouldn’t suggest trying to cry — mirroring is more about congruency and showing the person you are recognizing their emotional world, and responding with your face in a similar way shows this.
Removing distractions: put your cell phone down, resist the urge to drink or eat, and attempt to focus your full attention on this person.
Eye contact: eye contact is powerful. Use it. If the person you are speaking to has trouble with eye contact, that’s ok — follow their eyes even if they aren’t looking at you. (*Tip, if this is mega hard for you, look at their mouth instead. It will still feel like eye contact to that person).
Reflecting
Once rapport is built, and once you are providing a safe physical space with attending behaviors, you can begin to implement some reflecting.
Reflecting is just as it sounds: you literally reflect back what you have heard in your own words. To do this, you will paraphrase what you’ve heard (akin to writing a paper baby!) and briefly recount all the lovely details you’ve just heard while being such a lovely listener.
This shows the person you really heard them, and while it feels weird to do, it is music to a person’s ears to hear you say what they have just told you in your own words and shows deep understanding and listening (Mazibuko & Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors, 2019).
How to Reflect:
“It sounds like…”: once you’ve heard a good chunk of info from who you’re listening to, you can start with “it sounds like…” and then say what you believe you heard the person say.
“I’m hearing that…”: same as above, different beginning.
Feelings reflection: “I’m sensing you’re feeling…” if you can catch on to what the person might be feeling underneath their talking, you can reflect what you sense to be the feeling beneath it. (This is advanced, but I’m throwing it in for you saucy overachievers).
Questions
Questions can be delicate, as they either open beautiful doors for depth and understanding, or they can shut down a conversation immediately.
To avoid the latter, I suggest sticking to open-ended questions as opposed to closed-ended questions.
Closed-ended questions are ones that can only be answered with “yes” or “no”, while open-ended questions invite the speaker to think about their own response (MillerJuly, et al., 2019).
How to Ask Open-Ended Questions
Focus on expanding your understanding rather than looking for solutions. This will help you ask open-ended questions that invite deeper exploration.
Try these prompts: “What was it like for you to…” “How did you overcome this the last time it happened?” “What time in your life does this remind you of?”
Rather than asking for details of the story, consider asking about the person’s experience of the story.
Summarizing
Summarizing is a great way to transition, end, or follow up on a conversation where you are the listener. This is almost like a “master paraphrase,” as you will reflect everything you’ve heard in the conversation (Mazibuko & Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors, 2019).
How to Summarize
Tell a story of what you’ve heard: reflect on the beginning, middle, and end of what you heard the person go through in your conversation (if you’re listening well, it should feel like a journey with a full arc).
Reflect on the problem the person started with, what the two of you discussed, and the person’s present state now that they’ve talked it out (Endeaver Learning, n.d.).
You guys, you made it!
You are now officially schooled in attending to and understanding a person when listening to them. You also likely have new insight into your “listener type” and what areas you can improve on.
Remember this is not about getting it perfect or right — it’s about noticing your existing behaviors as a listener, trying new things, and noticing what clicks. I imagine your ability to make a positive impact on people and in your relationships will improve just by implementing one of these techniques.
Thanks for listening, pun intended.
XO -Rachel
References
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.sulross.edu/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/users/docs/education/counseling-microskills_4.pdf
Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. (2019, September 30). Counselling Microskills: Attending Behaviour. Retrieved from https://www.counsellingconnection.com/index.php/2009/11/05/attending-behaviour/
Mazibuko, B., & Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. (2019, September 30). Counselling Microskills: Responding, Noting and Reflecting. Retrieved from https://www.counsellingconnection.com/index.php/2009/11/09/responding-noting-and-reflecting/
MillerJuly, G., Miller, G., Silva, R. de, GoncalvesOctober, J., Goncalves, J., MainaNovember, R., … Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. (2019, September 30). Counselling Microskills: Questioning. Retrieved from https://www.counsellingconnection.com/index.php/2009/07/10/counselling-microskills-questioning/