Listening
January 5, 2010
Mayor Bloomberg in his January 1st 2010. third term inauguration speech said that “his job was to listen and to lead.” He might have been thinking of the quote from Woodrow Wilson who once said: “The ear of the leader must ring with the voice of the people.”
Is there an ethics of listening? Prof. Michael Purdy PhD, University Professor of Communication Studies, at Governor’s State University IL, believes that listening is a social behavior and therefore falls under the umbrella of ethics. Prof. David Beard of the Department of Writing Studies, University of Minnesota-Duluth in an article entitled “A Broader Understanding of the Ethics of Listening: Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Media Studies and the Ethical Listening Subject” published by the International Journal of Listening in January 2009 says that listening is a choice and that there are five key choices we all make when we decide to listen. They are:
1. The choice to listen individually
2. The choice to listen selectively
3. The choice not to listen
4. The choice to listen together
5. The choice to listen to each other.
The motivation or intent in making those decisions are often of an ethical nature.
Listening is also a skill and an art. Physicians, lawyers and Human Resources professionals depend on the skill of listening to perform their job successfully. An Ethics Officer also needs to know how to listen. Truth is often elusive and the risks of misunderstanding for an ethics officer can have a significant negative impact.
How can we be or become good listeners? Below are some ideas.
A good listener should:
1. Be receptive, keeping an open mind and be able to make abstraction of all he or she knows or assumes. It is not always easy to do so. We all have presumptions or preconceived ideas about the person who is talking to us and of the situation involved.
2. Be non-judgmental because judgment will limit our listening.
3. Be observant. People “speak” in ways other than words. Body language and demeanor can be very revealing.
4. Search for meaning beyond words and ask ourselves the question “What is the speaker really saying?”
5. Have empathy and try to understand the background, the life conditions and possible motivation of the speaker.
6. Be someone that can be trusted and respected.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said:
“It is the province of knowledge to speak. And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”
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