Feeling Heard: Experiences of Listening (or Not) at Work

Disagreement Gets Mistaken for Bad Listening

It is important for people to feel listened to in professional and personal communications, and yet they can feel unheard even when others have listened well. We propose that this feeling may arise because speakers conflate agreement with listening quality. In 11 studies (N = 3,396 adults), we held constant or manipulated a listener's objective listening behaviors, manipulating only after the conversation whether the listener agreed with the speaker. Across various topics, mediums (e.g., video, chat), and cues of objective listening quality, speakers consistently perceived disagreeing listeners as worse listeners. This effect persisted after controlling for other positive impressions of the listener (e.g., likability). This effect seemed to emerge because speakers believe their views are correct, leading them to infer that a disagreeing listener must not have been listening very well. Indeed, it may be prohibitively difficult for someone to simultaneously convey that they disagree and that they were listening.

Listening training in organizations

Employee listening training in organizations has been sparse and under-researched until recently. The substantial work that Itzchakov and Kluger and their colleagues have conducted in the last six years has laid the foundation for researchers to come. When employees learn to listen better, it decreases turnover intentions and burnout. When employees exist in a positive listening culture, it creates well-being and ties to the bottom line. Employee listening training should not focus on theories or barriers to listening; rather, it should be experiential and contextual. The listening circle technique, as well as other techniques they share freely, show great promise as being easy to implement and tied to a host of positive outcomes.

Development of listening competence in business education

Previous research indicates that listening is the most important type of oral communication in the workplace. Unfortunately, there is little evidence showing that business programs share this view. The goal of this literature review is to close the gap between employer preferences and business school priorities, thereby enhancing the listening competence of business graduates. Research has identified four listening styles. Task-oriented listening and critical listening focus on message content whereas relational listening and analytical listening are relationally oriented. Although competence in all four styles is needed, the most appropriate style to use is contingent on why one is listening. We propose a systems approach utilizing the ADIE (assessment, design, implementation, evaluation) model for developing the listening competence of business students.

The Power of Listening at Work

Listening is associated with and a likely cause of desired organizational outcomes in numerous areas, including job performance, leadership, quality of relationships (e.g., trust), job knowledge, job attitudes, and well-being. To advance understanding of the powerful effects of listening on organizational outcomes, we review the construct of listening, its measurement and experimental manipulations, and its outcomes, antecedents, and moderators. We suggest that listening is a dyadic phenomenon that benefits both the listener and the speaker, including supervisor-subordinate and salesperson-customer dyads. To explain previous findings and generate novel and testable hypotheses, we propose the episodic listening theory: listening can lead to a fleeting state of togetherness, in which dyad members undergo a mutual creative thought process. This process yields clarity, facilitates the generation of novel plans, increases well-being, and strengthens attachment to the conversation partner.