Importance of Good Listening Skills to Effective Communication

Importance of Good Listening Skills to Effective Communication
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Importance of Good Listening Skills to Effective Communication
I understand the significance of effective communication in my career success. In particular, proper interpersonal communication skills make it easy for me to interact with others. I pay attention to what other people are saying during conversations so that I can give the most appropriate response. Indeed, no one can communicate with others effectively without excellent listening skills. I count myself as an active listener who would rather remain silent when something is not clear during conversations. Listening is an integral part of communication that enhances trusting relationships between doctors and patients and fosters quality patient care.
Anything that is meant to undermine my personality or discriminate me or others makes me uncomfortable in a conversation. As such, I do not like topics of discrimination and depreciating individuals’ personalities. I understand that people have their differences, which make them unique. That is the reason why individuals have distinct talents. All people have the right to be respected and handled with dignity regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, culture, race, religion, or ethnicity. I find it difficult to undermine others based on their personalities and to discriminate against them since it makes people around uncomfortable as well, particularly if they belong to the minority groups. For anyone to share his or her side of the story, one must feel respected by others.
When I am uncomfortable with a particular conversation or talk, I keep it going to find the cause of the awkwardness. Arlin Cuncic (2019) argues that people should keep their conversations going even if they feel uncomfortable. In a study conducted by Groningen University, Netherlands, in 2010, it was clear that fluent conversations enhance social validation, creates a sense of belongingness to a specific group, and raise levels of self-esteem (Cuncic, 2019). For this reason, changing the topic of discussion or withdrawing from the conversation is not the appropriate solution, and it affects effective communication adversely. The only thing I do is to change my tone as an indication to other people involved in the conversation that I do not like what they are discussing. Notably, I use the right gestures depending on people I am speaking to since I understand that they can create confusion or misunderstanding due to misinterpretation by individuals.
In the past, I had an occasion of talking with an aggressive and persuasive individual. Persuasive people are over defensive since they believe in their perspectives only. They are not easily manipulated and hold on to their side of the story despite one’s effort to prove his or her points. In addition, these individuals believe that they are always right, which makes it hard to convince them. Even if we hold different opinion...