Active Listening Skills (Essay Sample)

Active Listening Skills
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Introduction
Listening is an art of human beings that involve the passing of ideas or information amongst each other. Although it has been identified that listening is totally different from hearing, individuals need to develop active listening skill to help them to internalize the information given and act accordingly. Listening skills are thus vital in the daily activities of people both at a personal level and professional level. Understanding the importance of listening skill helps the people to identify means through which they can effectively pass on information to other people.
Importance of Active Listening Skills
The first importance is that they determine how information is received and internalized by individuals. The listening skills of individuals usually determine the results from the information given. Poor listening skills are thus accompanied by poor results in both the personal and the professional level. Poor listening skills at the professional level usually result to low-quality data output. At the individual level, a good listening skills help the people to make fewer mistakes and to understand the information been gathered from the study materials CITATION Ire06 \p 27 \l 1033 (Irene, 2006, p. 27)
Secondly, the listening skills possessed by individuals determine how they receive instructions from others. Instructions are mostly given at the professional level where the professionals are given the do and don’t in their field of work. Poor listening skills result in not understanding the instruction given by the managers. As a result, the individual makes mistakes and correcting them is usually time-consuming. At a personal level, instructions are usually given in terms of rules and regulations at the social units. Such units include schools, peers and family CITATION Ire06 \p 27 \l 1033 (Irene, 2006, p. 27).
Thirdly, good listening skills usually help people to give and receive high-quality feedback. Feedback is usually the output given after working on instructions. Good listening skills usually enable individuals to take in instructions, act on them in order to provide the required feedback. Feedback is important especially where there is a research in progress. Poor listening skills are usually linked with low quality feedback or at time the feedback expected does not meet the timelines CITATION Ric092 \l 1033 (Richard, 2009).
Lastly, listening skills are imperative in developing and maintaining relationships among people. Listening skills are usually verbal and non-verbal and they are used by individuals to communicate and create relationships among them. The listening skills usually bring in classes of people thus a creation of peer groups among people. Verbal and non-verbal skills are important while listening since they show that the person is understanding and is contributing to the topic being discussed. Poor listening skills are identified when a person does not respond both verbally and non-verbally in conversations. Some of the non-verbal means of conversations include nodding the head and the use of hands to give gestures CITATION Ann0...