“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

This post dives into the essential yet often overlooked skill in personal development: truly listening. It goes beyond the basic idea of hearing words, exploring how active and exploratory listening can deepen our connections and understanding of others.

After you read this post, I invite you to embrace listening not just to respond but to understand the other person, opening the door to richer, more meaningful interactions and relationships in our daily lives.

Let’s break down truly listening into two abilities: Active listening and Exploratory listening.

1️⃣Active Listening: Beyond Words Lies Silence

Communication is an art mastered by a few.

Most of us are familiar with the statistic that nonverbal communication accounts for approximately 93%, while what we say is only 7%.

This means what you say matters relatively little, but how you say it and how your body supports it matters much more.

But there’s a problem with this:

It focuses too much on the communicator, on how to deliver a message to convey everything intended. It focuses too little on the role of a true leader, the receiver.

A good listener knows to listen better than to speak.

But it’s not easy.

Schizophrenia Syndrome in Communication

How many voices do you think are in communication between two people? The answer is four.

It might be a different question than you expected, but let me clarify. Please recognize that when you’re talking to someone, you actually have two voices, the one you speak out loud and the one you think, usually evaluating how the other person is reacting.

But this also happens when you listen.

You hear the other person’s voice, and at the same time, you hear your own in your head, assimilating, judging, preparing responses, and wanting to share the solution you’ve already seen, and it seems the other person hasn’t.

Sound familiar?

You keep nodding your head. You lean forward to speak but nod since the other person doesn’t stop talking. You purse your lips slightly. You smile. You lean back a bit, and while doing so, you keep nodding, waiting for your moment to share what you think.

It happens to all of us.

The Antidote to Improve Active Listening

Active listening means being aware of our tendency and learning to “re-focus” on listening to the only voice that matters at that moment.

The voice of the person speaking.

Focus solely and exclusively on what the other person is saying and trying to say. Gift them your presence.

There’s a world behind that beautiful person. If you listen to yourself, you’ll do nothing but hear what you already know.

2️⃣Exploratory Listening: The Genuine Art of Understanding the Message

There’s more to listening than just hearing; it’s understanding.

Let’s break the message into two parts: content and form.

Exploratory listening is the art of understanding that message in the best possible way in a given situation.

This is achieved with two techniques: separating form from content and exploring the context.

Separate Content and Form

Content is the “what” is being said. The form is the “how” it is being said.

For example: “Go and close the door.”

The content intended by that message is: go to a place and change the state of the door (from open to closed).

Now, the form can be very different. It’s not the same to hear: “GO AND CLOSE IT!” as it is to hear, “Excuse me, could you close the door?”

I believe it doesn’t make you feel the same if someone yells at you or if someone asks you politely. But that’s just the key.

The content is the same.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of paying more attention to how things are said rather than what is actually being said. We are anatomically built that way.

Emotion comes first. Reason follows.

Understanding this human trait and training ourselves to differentiate between content and form will elevate your leadership, relationships, communication, and emotional education.

It’s crucial to understand how our brain functions in communication, how the amygdala colors our reality, and how it can hijack us. Understanding this is a game-changer in your leadership. We’ll discuss this in the next post.

Next Post Preview

The glasses no leader can remove. The whisper no leader can silence. A reality that, if not understood, becomes a chain that will halt your growth in leadership.

This post is part of my series 🩶 A Hearth of Leadership Series. Subscribe to get the series directly in your email inbox.

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Read More About Active Listening and Communication

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This post was inspired by an article written by my friend Mario Acevedo; if you can read Spanish, I recommend you to follow him in Substack!

🇪🇸 https://substack.com/@marioacevedoaguilar

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Disclaimer: This post was created with the help of AI tools to improve efficiency, required hours of dedicated writing, and contains my experience in the field.