Good communication between teams is an essential element for strategic people management. Through it, it is possible to achieve significant results not only in the productive sphere but also in the engagement and motivation of professionals, mainly with the practice of active listening.
The term active listening, which has its origins in psychology, has been widely incorporated into the workplace as a methodology to open channels of dialogue between employees and their leaders, increasing the interpersonal skills that are so important for a professional career.
In this article, you will understand why active listening is one of the most valued skills for leadership positions in the future of work and how it helps with the growth and recognition of talent within your team, which adds benefits to the entire organization.
- What is active listening?
- The challenges of communication at work
- The principles of active listening
- The benefits of active listening
- Steps to apply active listening to remote work
- The cone of experience
- Improve your leadership with management software
What is active listening?
Active listening is a concept born in the field of clinical psychology, initially focused on the family context.
Although other professionals had already addressed the power of listening in the first half of the 19th century, it was psychologist Thomas Gordon (1918-2002) who passed on active listening as a method of communication and conflict resolution.
Published in the 1970s in the American Psychological Association, his article Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) focused on developing techniques for parents to understand their children’s needs, thus improving their children’s education.
Active listening in this family environment then brought a new, person-centered approach, enabling a relationship of trust and understanding.
Active listening in the workplace
It didn’t take long for other professionals in the field to realize that this communication methodology also found space in other places, such as schools and the workplace .
This is because the vast majority of activities carried out within organizations are established through personal relationships, which involve the act of delegating tasks, monitoring processes, evaluating performance, and holding planning meetings, among other activities.
Considering that many of these steps were facilitated with the implementation of management and measurement tools, active listening became one of the steps to be followed towards the humanization of interpersonal relationships.