November 3, 2025
by Harshita Tewari / November 3, 2025
Did you hear that?
You probably heard something, but were you actually listening? We’re surrounded by sounds all day long: the hum of traffic, a coworker typing, a distant siren. Our ears hear, but our minds don’t always pay attention. And that’s okay, until it starts affecting how we communicate.
In conversations, meetings, or even digital interactions, listening is more than passive hearing. It’s a deliberate act that fosters trust, enhances relationships, and deepens understanding. Whether you’re leading a team, managing a relationship, or simply trying to learn, mastering the art of listening is a game-changer.
The 5 key listening skills are paying attention, showing that you’re listening, providing feedback, deferring judgment, and responding appropriately. These skills help improve comprehension, build rapport, and reduce misunderstandings in conversations.
In modern businesses, where talking is just one part of how people connect, communication happens across many channels: emails, chats, project updates, and company-wide broadcasts. To manage this complexity, many organizations rely on internal communications software to ensure that important messages are delivered clearly and consistently.
Before we go on, it is important to note the difference between listening and hearing. They are similar concepts that are understandably confused.
Hearing is an effortless act that happens involuntarily. It is simply our senses perceiving a sound. Listening is choosing to hear something and focusing on it. Let’s check out an example when both are used.
Say there is maintenance work being done at your office, but you didn’t read the email giving you a heads-up. You are minding your own business, working, and you hear a noise that sounds like a dentist's tool. Because it was unintentional and you weren’t deliberately paying attention, your senses picking up on the noise is an example of hearing. However, after you heard it once and became curious, you started listening to the sound to identify it. You hear it again, and with the help of your focus and attention, you can interpret the sound and identify that it was a drill.
| Hearing | Listening |
| Passive act of perceiving sound | Active process requiring focus |
| Involuntary | Voluntary and intentional |
| Doesn’t require understanding | Requires interpretation and response |
| Example: Noticing background music in a cafe | Example: Focusing on a friend's story and asking clarifying questions |
Hearing is technically a part of listening. Adding attention and interpretation just takes it a step further.
You will achieve little in your personal or professional life if you cannot master the art of listening. Harsh, I know. But I don’t make the rules.
New information is constantly being tossed around, and if you aren’t paying attention, you might miss something that could affect you in the long run. Relationships, personal and professional, thrive on effective communication, and listening is a key factor.
Active listening strengthens relationships, boosts problem-solving skills, and fosters empathy. When you fully engage, you gain deeper insights, resolve conflicts more effectively, and build credibility.
Leaders who practice active listening foster more collaborative teams. In personal relationships, being fully present in conversations can prevent misunderstandings and strengthen emotional bonds.
Oddly enough, there is more than one way to listen. In fact, there are quite a few.
Discriminative listening is the most basic form of listening. Not too different from just hearing something, discriminative listening is simply understanding different sounds and differentiating them from one another. These skills are developed early in life and become more adept as we gain new experiences and are exposed to more sounds.
As babies with little to no language skills, discriminative listening is all we know. We understand that humans speaking and dogs barking are two different sounds. As adults, we use discriminative listening to determine emotion. Aspects of verbal communication, such as emphasis and tone, can give the listener an idea of the speaker’s current emotional state.
Comprehensive listening is understanding the message being communicated. After hearing the sounds and differentiating them from others, we make sense of them.
Vocabulary and language skills are necessary to be a comprehensive listener. Not understanding the meaning of a word or the language of the speaker limits the listener.
Comprehensive listening also means paying attention to nonverbal cues. Comprehending someone’s actions is just as important as understanding their words as they both have an effect on the overall message.
Using the word critical here doesn’t necessarily mean the words will be scrutinized. Critical listening is used when we comprehend someone’s words and then evaluate them to either solve a problem or make a decision. It includes analyzing the information being presented and then aligning it with our current knowledge, values, and beliefs.
Dialogic listening is used when a conversation is regularly flowing back and forth between two people. It adds the element of curiosity to listening. Listeners seek new information about the person they are speaking with and the subject they are discussing.
Dialogic listening is also referred to as relational listening. The exchanging of information can cause the speakers to relate to one another, resulting in a connection.
The digital age has brought about a new form of listening. Social listening is keeping an eye on digital conversations and information. This can apply to individuals, businesses, or entire industries.
Social listening can sometimes be similar to dialogic listening. When social media users are saying things about a person, business, or brand online, a response might be expected. Paying attention to digital conversations that concern you and responding when necessary gives you a voice on public platforms.
While most types of listening allow people to access new information and ideas, unproductive types of listening still exist. Biased listening occurs when someone hears only what they want based on bias and prejudice. Yes, the listener can still gain new information, but biased listening can also lead to misinterpreting the speaker’s message.
Listening feels automatic, but it’s actually a multi‑step mental process. You don’t just absorb sound like a recorder; your brain filters, interprets, judges, and decides how to respond. Understanding these stages makes it easier to identify where communication breaks down and how to improve it.
This is the physical and sensory stage. You hear the sounds (or perceive signals in nonverbal or digital contexts) and decide what deserves attention. It sounds basic, but it’s where many people lose the thread, especially in busy environments.
Example: In a meeting, you might hear your teammate explaining a timeline, but if Slack notifications keep popping up, your brain may not fully receive their message.
Next, your brain interprets what you received. This includes:
Understanding is where miscommunication often begins, not because someone wasn’t listening, but because they interpreted differently.
Example: A manager says, “Let’s move fast on this.” One person hears urgency; another hears pressure. Same words, different meanings.
Now you mentally judge the message. Is it true? Important? Fair? Relevant? You compare what you heard to your values, experiences, and goals. This step is necessary, but it’s risky if done too early.
Example: If you start evaluating before someone finishes speaking, you might tune out the rest and miss their actual point.
Finally, you react, verbally and nonverbally. Responses include:
A strong response shows the speaker they were heard. A weak one (“Anyway…” while checking your phone) tells them they weren’t.
Bottom line: Listening is a skill because each stage can be strengthened. When communication fails, the cause is almost always hiding in one of these four steps.
Even people with good intentions drift into bad listening habits. The challenge is that barriers to listening don’t always feel like barriers in the moment; they feel like being “busy,” “sure you’re right,” or “already knowing what they mean.” But those small slips add up to big misunderstandings.
Want to test your listening skills? Take this quick self-check:
If you answered yes to the first two questions or no to the last, you may need to strengthen your listening habits.
Here are some ways to enhance your listening abilities.
This should be an obvious one, but make sure you are actively listening instead of just hearing words. Show your interest by sitting up straight and making eye contact with the speaker.
First of all, it’s rude. Also, it proves to the speaker that you were focused on what you wanted to say, instead of what they were saying to you. Constantly interrupting someone implies a boatload of negative qualities in a person, and you don’t want to make the wrong impression.
Asking questions is a great indicator that you are paying attention, but only if the questions are asked to clarify something that was already touched on. Asking unrelated questions can distract from the original purpose of the conversation, and unimportant information will replace the knowledge you need.
Put yourself in the speaker’s shoes. If they are talking about something exciting, look excited. If it is a sad topic, don’t sit there smiling from ear to ear. Identify what the speaker is feeling and do your best to match it.
The information being presented to you may be foreign, unfamiliar, and something that you may not even agree with. Keep the negative criticism to a minimum. Once you go down that mental road, it’s hard to turn around.
Got more questions? We have the answers.
Nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, and gestures, add context to words and help listeners interpret meaning more accurately. Ignoring these signals can lead to misconceptions, especially in emotionally charged or high-stakes conversations.
Listening builds trust, empathy, and clarity. In leadership, it improves decision-making and team morale. In relationships, it strengthens emotional connection and reduces conflict. People feel valued when they know they’re truly heard.
Yes, listening is a skill anyone can improve. With practice, like eliminating distractions, paraphrasing, and asking clarifying questions, people can become more focused, empathetic, and effective listeners.
Definitely. In person, body language, and tone add depth. Remote conversations require more verbal clarity and focus. In written formats, careful reading and follow-up questions help compensate for the lack of tone or nonverbal cues.
In digital settings, missing tone and body language make miscommunication more likely. Effective listening online means slowing down, asking clarifying questions, and confirming intent more often than you would in person.
As author Stephen R. Covey said, "Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply." Challenge yourself to be fully present in your next conversation. You might be surprised at how much more you connect when you truly listen.
All positive relationships are fueled by effective communication. When communicating, listening to information is just as important as providing it. Strengthening your listening skills will enable you to be an active and valuable member of any conversation.
Discover conversation intelligence software on G2 and how it can transform your business interactions.
Harshita is a Content Marketing Specialist at G2. She holds a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and has worked in the sales and marketing sector for food tech and travel startups. Currently, she specializes in writing content for the ERP persona, covering topics like energy management, IP management, process ERP, and vendor management. In her free time, she can be found snuggled up with her pets, writing poetry, or in the middle of a Netflix binge.
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