Conscious Empathy

It takes practice and skill to develop intentional levels of listening.

Most people listen with the intent to respond and lose some of what is being said as they think of their own emotional or verbal response.

The level of listening also matters if you are a leader, manager, or team member. There are colleagues who show a lack of sincerity or attention when someone is speaking.

The constant distractions take us away from fully utilizing the most powerful uses of empathic listening.

If the goal is to train for tasks, you may do most of the speaking but, must listen appropriately for questions to be sure proper communication and understanding has taken place. Additionally, a “coaching” leadership style is very effective from a research standpoint.

However, coaching conversations require neutrality and the outcome that is best for the coachee. This cannot occur at its highest purpose between leader and employee due to conflicting priorities.

In pure coaching, the client creates the topic of the session with the facilitation of the coach. Questions guide with clarification or discovery.

Suggestions, advice, or giving answers in a 1:1 coaching conversation do not serve the client in reaching their full potential.

It takes the highest level of empathic, or global, listening to hear what emotions, tone, voice, mood, said or unsaid words take place for pure coaching.

There is no other agenda other than the one the client chooses for discussion.

Determine what role you are trying to represent or achieve in your communication. Are you counseling? Teaching or acting as a subject matter expert? Training? Delegating? Mentoring? Guiding? Each has a different purpose and method to be most effective.

If you want to understand just how impactful empathic listening can be, then speak with me. We can co-create the right method for you – I’m listening.