The Importance of Listening in Relationships

What do you remember most about your favorite teacher or most inspiring boss? Do you remember what they were called? or how they made you feel?

The brain can only focus on one thing at a time; despite our best efforts, we are unable to complete multiple tasks at once. The amygdala, a region of the brain that is active anytime we feel frightened, takes precedence over other regions of the brain, so it is crucial to understand that. The prefrontal cortex, the executive portion of the brain, is taken over, and after acquisition, brain activity is prioritized to concentrate on dealing with the circumstances, such as perceived dangers and stressors.

In the context of education, this is very important for us to understand, and it must therefore be considered. This means that children who feel unsafe, threatened, and stressed are less able to concentrate. This imbalance manifests itself in the impairment caused by the amygdala's control over parts of the brain known to provoke curiosity, observe opportunities, participate in experiments or risk, and seek change. Research shows that for children to develop well, explore the world, and learn, they must feel safe.

In the workplace, this means that employees are less able to be curious because they will focus on external threats and will want to take fewer risks for fear of failure. This reduces their opportunities for professional and personal growth, kills their creativity, and affects their efficiency at work.

Dr. Richard Davidson once said, "One of the wonderful things we've learned in science is that when we face adversity, it reduces brain resilience and downregulates the genes responsible for resilience itself, so the learning mechanisms themselves are impaired." This was during a five-day event called "Reimagining Human Flourishing," organized by the Mind & Life Institute.

An environment that lacks safety pushes a person to keep going while feeling fear and always looking for potential threats.

So teachers, leaders, and anyone else who wants to lead a team or group of people must be able to establish a sense of security and confidence in children and staff. If they want to use their brain less for defense, allow them to take risks, learn, accomplish new things, and ultimately unleash their full potential.

How do we build trust?

There are many ways to build trust within a group of people, but the most effective, natural, and lasting way to create trust is through the nature of your relationship with the individual you are trying to inspire or teach, which will always be determined by the quality of your listening. Whether we are talking about the teacher-student relationship, the boss-employee relationship, or any relationship whatsoever, the key to establishing a good relationship of any kind is the practice of deep and empathetic listening that is far from judgmental. This quality is important for emotionally intelligent people.

When we say we should practice this kind of listening, we mean much more than merely listening to hear what the other person is saying when they discuss their issues and express their emotions, especially the negative ones. Emotionally intelligent teachers and leaders recognize the feelings of other adults or children, know how they might interact with them, and then have an opportunity to use their eyes to observe physical evidence of their emotions, such as body language, facial expressions, and gestures, and use their hearts to feel what the other person or child is feeling.

Deep, empathetic, and non-judgmental listening means using words to reflect in a calm, non-judgmental way what the teacher or leader is listening to, to express the speaker's feelings, and to help them change them. This type of listening does not mean just listening to the words; rather, it is to ensure that the listener focuses on the needs and goals of the speaker and forgets their opinions about the situation and their own needs. In this way, the child or employee will feel that you are listening to them and that you understand that their feelings, needs, and opinions are valid, understood, and respected.

Isn't that what we all want? Don't we all want to express our fears, needs, and issues and not be judged? Remember that feelings or thoughts cannot be completely controlled. Therefore, the goal is to explore, understand, and use emotions, not try to suppress them.

Through the practice of deep, empathetic, and non-judgmental listening, children and staff will feel heard and respected, and they will feel that they can trust the teacher or leader to talk about their feelings, challenges, and problems. They will know that the teacher or team leader will not criticize or ridicule their feelings as negative or as having difficult thoughts.

When a student or employee has a problem, they will come to the teacher or the leader because they know they are being given more than just speeches and lectures and because they feel they are being listened to. Hence, they will feel the respect of the listener, which will translate into a relationship of trust and care between them.

Benefits of listening:

Deep, empathetic, non-judgmental listening leads to feelings of trust and respect. Hence, learning and inspiration.

Teachers need inspiration so that children can learn from them in an effective and sustained manner. In the business world, we can only achieve our goals through and with people. So if we want to thrive, we need people to thrive with us.

To do this, in both cases, we need to have good communication with our peers, the people we lead or teach, and the people we generally know so that we can create trust, love, respect, and the ability to motivate, educate, and inspire others. These are the teachers and leaders who live through history, and these are the leaders who change lives.