How can you develop empathy when coaching clients to improve listening skills?

Listening Skills: What are the different ways you can listen? I sense it is important we look at listening from a holistic perspective. A coaching competency. Listening is one of the 5 or 6 senses. Every sense responds differently in everyone’s body. These responses are related on a level of emotions and values leading to behaviours how we act with or without empathy! When you listen internally and externally you gather more information to make decisions. Think vastly what is listening and the multiple ways. Eg listen with your eyes, hands, heart, gut, mind, taste, touch, body movement - etc Connect to your senses where most are disconnected!! Empathy is related to your senses! Start activating your senses.

Empathy serves as a crucial linchpin in the realm of coaching, especially when honing listening skills. Beyond the mere act of hearing, genuine listening encapsulates the art of attentiveness, cognitive processing, and suitable responsiveness. It’s the cornerstone of effective communication, problem-solving, and collaborative efforts. However, the terrain of attentive listening can often be fraught with distractions, conflicting viewpoints, or ingrained biases. This is where empathy emerges as an invaluable ally for coaches, enabling them to transcend these barriers and delve deeper into their clients’ narratives. Empathy, in essence, isn’t just a skill; it’s the bedrock upon which effective coaching and transformative listening stand.

Empathy requires that you care. People don't care what you know until they know you care. You can't fake it and people know when you do. The most successful behavior change comes from self-generated insights. The only way to help create self generated insights is through a Socratic method -- asking questions. Here's the catch. Your questions need to come from a place of genuine curiosity. Curiosity connects us. And genuine curiosity requires presence. Full presence and the ability to listen to learn, to listen to understand and want to help the person dig deeper for themselves. Energy doesn't lie. Care, ask out of genuine curiosity, help them dig deeper by even more clarifying questions, and be present.

?? spot on .Listen first to understand! Active listening skills is one of the most important traits of Leadership. Once you have masterd this- Empathy and understanding becomes a reality!

The reality is that if we haven't been through something, it is very hard to imagine ourselves in that situation. Thus, we find ourselves in a non-emotional place when dealing with some things. Sometimes that is good in order to deal with the situation logically, but then when we have been through something we have genuine heartfelt care for the person we are connecting with. Now in terms of empathy, it is up to us to make a deliberate CHOICE to stop and listen, even though we haven't been through their particular challenge. What we CAN do is take a moment to at least think more deeply about how their situation would affect us. Then we will begin to scratch the surface of what it is like to be REAL with those who we are wanting to assist.

Silence the voice in your head. Listen with all your resources. Do not take notes. 'Listen' to the coachee"s facial expression. Clarify, confirm and repeat where necessary.Ask questions. Wait for the answer. Practice. You will get it right.

A helpfull approach is to involve both the head and the heart in the coaching process and include more heart based questions. Ask for example: “What does honesty and openness tell you to do?”, “What does passion tell you to do?” or “What does courage tell you to do?”

Coaching is all about empathising with a client in his or her situation to embrace it, understand it and transform it as the client wishes. It requires a safe environment where a client feels understood, appreciated and respected. Then the client will feel safe enough to launch out, be challenged, stretched, receive feedback, get to the heart of things, change and even transform. So, empathy is first and foremost. Meet the client at his model of the world. Do that by matching external expressions, and then matching the client's world of meaning and emotion with active listening, verbally pacing, and non-verbally coaching with the client's semantic space. And sometimes, empathising requires your own disclosure.

Get out of your head and into your heart. Becoming present and emotionally connected helps to cultivate empathy. Being other-focused helps to deepen empathy. Listening on a deeper and deeper level than you ever have and asking clarifying questions. Take off your expert hat, set aside your judgements, and hold the space for the other person, a safe space in which they can have a profound and deep conversation with themselves. Human connection -- an art and a skill!

To empathise requires us to be open and let go of our judgment as it clouds our ability to listen deeply. Our brain is such that we are unable to be curious and judgmental at the same time. To evoke curiosity, practice asking ourselves, "What happened to him/her?", "What made him or her think/feel so?". The truth is, coaches are human and letting go could feel unsafe. We need to train ourselves to feel ok in an unknown and diverse world of our client. By adopting the role of a detective, we put a distance between us and the situation. Instead, we focus on understanding what could be beneath the 'iceberg' of our client's behaviours.

Practice active listening. Pay close attention to what is said beyond words. Listen to understand. Learn to read and pay attention to non-verbal language, including micro-expressions. Listening to understand takes practice, but it is the key to results and open communication.

Listening has become a lost art and is a vital skill at work and in life. Given all the noise and distractions in our lives, it makes listening more challenging. As a coach, I refer to 3 ways to listen: 1. Basic listening where we hear the words and quickly respond, 2. Active Listening where we're more engaged by asking questions and 3. Listening for Understanding where we spend more time usually because we care about this person or the topic. This includes paying attention to how someone is feeling, and noticing facial expressions gives you more info. When we practice this, it shows a deeper awareness. We're likely to learn more & get a better response. This level of listening enhances all types of relationships. Try it & see what happens.

To listen without weighing in, is actually very challenging for most of us. One way to practice listening skill, is to start with holding silence, for as long as possible without interrupting, until the speakers express they are done. Another way of practicing deep listening, is to share back the emotions picked up, and verify with the speaker if that is correct. As a coach, we can role play with our clients. Depending whether this is conducted in-person or online, we can turn around or switch off the video as our clients listen in to us. Not seeing actually amplifies our other senses, helping us pick up the emotions and nuances in-between the lines.

Something I've found useful is to explain the communication model to clients. This shows them that listening is a significant part of the process and how it can be derailed in real life. I find it gives them something tangible to think about in their following interactions. And placing the emphasis on understanding as the outcome of all communication rather than replying is also helpful for clients.

Listen with the intent to be able to repeat the speaker's words back to them. This will help you focus on all of what is being said rather than how you are going to respond. This also helps you tell the person what you heard to check your understanding.

The best measure is when the other party feels empathised and heard. One way to measure and evaluate is simply reflecting back to the speaker and ask if the listener has accurately captured the essence (emotions, thoughts, aspirations..etc.). A leader who is able to connect with her members is a leader who can empathise and listen deeply. Hence, a 360 assessment tool could be another way to systematically measure and evaluate empathy and listening skills in organisations.

It's important to remember that the quality of any communication is rated in the ear of the receiver. So it's important to help clients understand the impact they're having on others in their communicating. I encourage clients to reflect on interactions that went well and those that did not go so well and to identify what made the difference. I also encourage them to source feedback from people they interact with who they trust to get real-life feedback and insights into their intended and unintended impact.

An important point here is that as a coach you should be focused on your conversation with the client and empathize the situation, understand from client's view. Imagine how important part here play facial expressions and especially how you operate with your head. Unless, as a coach you are not creating a so called Bluetooth connection between the client and yourself the listening connection may be not so good established. It worth exploring with the clients what makes them to get connected and how they want to develop this skill for themselves. It is about the people and their inner connection world and how make them think about how they can listen and connect to other and start with their own "Why".

Diversidad de Experiencias: Incentivar interacciones con distintas culturas y perspectivas. Reflexión y Metas: Establecer objetivos de aprendizaje y fomentar la reflexión personal. Escucha Activa: Ejercitar la escucha activa mediante reflejo, parafraseo y respuesta sin prejuicios. Autocuidado: Promover la salud mental y física, esenciales para la empatía y la escucha. Feedback y Autoevaluación: Proporcionar retroalimentación constructiva y fomentar la autoevaluación. Role-playing: Usar simulaciones para practicar empatía y escucha en contextos controlados.

Empathy and listening skills is part of social skills. To maintain and improve, we need to be able to interact and practice with people.

Creating safety is vital in building trusting relationships because it creates an environment where individuals feel secure, respected, and free from judgment. This supports a culture of empathy. When people feel safe, they are more likely to open up, share their thoughts and emotions, and engage in honest communication. This foundation of safety is fundamental for trust to develop, as individuals need assurance that their vulnerabilities won't be exploited. Trust thrives in an atmosphere where people feel protected and understood, reinforcing the bonds of a healthy relationship.

Many people claim to be coaches in today's business world, yet some are actually "training" or "mentoring" their clients. Both training and mentoring are valuable and necessary, but involve more "telling" vs. "asking". When coaching clients, the focus is on the client, and your role, as a coach, is to be "asking" questions to help guide the client towards better understanding of their challenges, and to help them identify potential solutions to those challenges. Coaching is? not about telling people what to do; it is giving them an opportunity to examine what they’re doing in light of their intentions by asking questions and holding space for them to experience self-discovery with guidance and support.

The most important thing is the context. The coaching should attribute critical importance to the context that aligns with the benefit of listening well, listening right and listening to the real story. Once the mentee or client comprehends this context and completely aligns it with his or her benefit from the whole exercise, the importance and need of empathy will be well learned, adopted and practised. Context is always important. It also helps in the display of empathy at the right time and the right place thus peaking the ultimate result of the action more often than not.