Relationship Between Listening and Interpersonal Communication

The Power of Listening
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CM206 - Unit 6 Assignment
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Listening is defined as various approaches that shape interactions, such as analysis, empathy, and information sharing. In interpersonal communication, listening is actively taking in, processing, and making sense of another person's words and body language (Solomon & Theiss, 2022). An often-overlooked aspect of human interaction, attentive listening, goes beyond passive hearing to actively seek understanding, foster trust, and open a channel for genuine conversation.
Informational, critical, and empathic listening are the three main types of listening, which are all essential to communication (Westmaas, 2022). Understanding and remembering information is a top priority in many professional and educational settings, making informational listening a crucial skill. However, decision-making situations frequently call for critical listening, which entails assessing the content for reliability and relevance. In addition, empathetic listening is a relationship-building skill that prioritizes picking up on the speaker's emotional cues. The steps of listening are: receiving (perceiving sound), decoding (understanding the meaning of the message), remembering (storing the information), evaluating (judging the quality of the content), and responding (giving one's opinion). Although, each component is essential to the final product: complete comprehension and appropriate action.
Hearing is a passive physiological process involving the reception of sound waves, whereas listening constitutes an active cognitive activity, including the reception, processing, and assessment of the information being conveyed. Despite their frequent synonymy, the two terms have essential conceptual differences. For example, when Steve Jobs and the team first introduced the Macintosh to Apple's board, they were met with scepticism. It could be argued that the board's preexisting biases about Apple's future prevented them from hearing the presentation in a way that would allow them to appreciate the game-changing potential of the Macintosh fully (Binns, O'Reilly & Tushman, 2022). Therefore, their response highlighted the gap between passively receiving and actively processing information. A person's ability to hear versus listen is a critical factor in the health of their personal and professional relation...