As Millennials (GenY generation) hold management positions, are looking for ways to better connect with employees and promote efficiency at work, empathic listening becomes a skill of top concern. . By analyzing and providing "exercises" to help you perfect your empathic listening skills, the following article hopes to provide a method to help managers improve performance and quality of work.
What is empathic listening?
Empathic listening is attentive and interactive listening that aims to understand a speaker's feelings, in addition to their ideas and thoughts. The distinguishing feature of empathic listening is that it provides encouragement and support to the other person, rather than providing prejudice or judgment.
Empathic listening skills in the work environment are understood as the way that managers give full attention when absorbing ideas from employees and understanding their emotional experiences. From there, creating a communication space where employees feel safe being themselves, more comfortable and open. That will be the foundation to build an ideal working environment, thereby helping to improve work efficiency and quality.
The importance of empathic listening skills in human resource management
In the workplace, most leaders are active talkers and employees are passive listeners. However, if managers know how to empathize with their employees' thoughts and sharing, they will notice positive changes in their work. Empathic listening thus helps build trust and loyalty among employees. At the same time, this skill helps eliminate the fear of being wrong in employees, making them more comfortable to come up with more creative and optimal suggestions.
Empathic listening helps to open up discussions, thereby solving problems such as misunderstandings in assigning and receiving jobs, team conflicts or fear of making mistakes when giving opinions… A good manager Empathic listening with employees will create a positive cohesion in the team. When the understanding from superiors is spread, it will be transmitted to the entire organization helping to improve team spirit as well as build unity in the team. Organizational attachment makes them feel that their success and the success of the organization are closely related, motivating them to find new and best ways of doing things.
In addition, empathic listening helps managers expand their horizons, thereby making more accurate decisions. When you're open to listening to what's going on around you, you can spot the tiniest signs of the actual health of your team. From there, find solutions to overcome problems or offer more optimal development directions for your organization. At the same time, listening to what's happening can provide great clues to what's to come. So, daily empathic listening can be one of the key elements to a proactive strategy.
Author Stephen Covey once wrote: “Most people listen not to understand, they listen to respond.” Therefore, in order for conversations to become deeper, thereby helping to improve work efficiency, empathic listening is a skill that human resource managers need to practice.
Ways to listen empathically to become an effective manager
For all employees to understand the actual work and development goals of the team. Khai Ta - COO of KAMEREO gave an interview at Vietcetera with the question: "-Do you have to manage many departments with one hand, do you have any effective communication secrets?" The secret, he says, is simply making sure every member of the company's team is aware of what the company is aiming for, and that every job they do makes an important contribution to that goal. Therefore, every time a challenge comes, the whole team can easily and quickly come up with a solution that is in line with the company's direction.
It makes no sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do.” A good leader is one who sets strategy and goals and then empowers everyone to contribute. Allow the speaker to reaffirm or expand on feelings by providing summaries or open-ended questions. You can start off by saying “As far as I understand your words…” or “Do you mean…” Or you can help the other person reconcile their feelings by saying something like, “You seem to be having a very hard time. sad and angry, the problem is…” or “That must have been a difficult situation? "
Place trust when assigning work to employees, thereby giving them opportunities to cultivate and develop themselves. Even if you don't agree on how to do it or aren't satisfied with the results, you need to avoid immediate controversy. First, trust that the other party has his own reasons, then listen and ask questions to understand the context and get the necessary information. In case you disagree, start with the question “What makes you think/do that? ” and talk about points where you agree with them first to avoid putting the other person on the defensive. Give employees the opportunity to express their full potential, think, give them some freedom to decide how to handle their work. Let's encourage and encourage them in all situations, even when faced with difficult situations.
Understanding the challenges of managers in perfecting their empathic listening skills for employees, Tictop brings a modern and smart work management solution. This software helps the team understand the development plans and goals as well as build a clear and effective working process. With the optimization of the functions and the interface, you will easily exchange ideas, easily assign, receive and manage the daily tasks of each member of the team.
Empathic listening is a process of learning and improvement, and we are here to work with you to find the most effective way to work. Please visit www.tictop.vn to see detailed information about Tictop and experience the effective method of working today!
Tictop team.
