Listening Styles and Personality Connection

Summary
The article Exploring the Relationship Between Listening Style Preference and Personality discusses how the art of listening can be directly related to one’s personality. The four types of listening styles are: people, action, content, and time. Each type has certain characteristics. People listeners look for the commonalities with the speaker and tend to listen with their own feelings. Action listeners are more critical and look for incorrect or questionable information. Content listeners look for the evidence or proof of the information presented. Time listeners are in a hurry to get the most important information from the speaker and move on. As further discussed by Worthington (2003), the type of listener can be determined by individual personality. She discussed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This instrument assesses personalities in the following categories or pairings: Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuiting, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving. As subjects take the test and end with a score, they are determined to be one type in each pair, which then helps to determine the type of listener they are.

Reflection
When relating this topic to my current work setting, I have learned that listening is more than simply hearing what has been spoken. Actively listening and ingesting what is being said is not as easy as one may think especially when working with lawyers who are poor communicators in general. It is imperative to listen to instructions and then ask questions based on the information that was missing. Directions are often unclear and knowing which questions to ask will bring more information than the original set of instructions. Often the outcome of an assignment is not at all what was asked. According to Worthington, having the type of personality to think quickly and feel comfortable asking helps in being an action/content type of listener (2003).

Realization
I agree that our listening style mimics that of our personality for the most part and further agree that the testing provided in the article would be considered accurate most of the time. However, the MBTI isn’t an exact science and given the type of day one may have, they may score differently if they took it weeks later in a different mind set. I also believe that there are times we listen differently based on the interest of the subject or the reason we are exposed to.

Overall, the most significant concept that I took away from this article was simply the idea that listening can be related to the personality of an individual. This concept is not something I had ever encountered or considered before. I found it fascinating that there is more behind the manner in which one listens than simply being active or passive. Before reading the article, I believed we listened based on our level of interest. However, there are times that we need to listen even when we are not interested at all. This is where I believe we need to adapt in order to better communicate with those around us.

If I were to know the personality types of my coworkers, I may find it easier to improve my professional communication skills. However, now that I am aware that I am an action/content listener, I can easily determine when I need to tailor my listening to the person that I am interacting with. There may be times that I communicate with people in other countries and of other cultures which present challenges of their own. Adapting my listening and communicating should help to break down communication barriers.

References
Worthington, D. (2003). Exploring the relationship between listening style preference and personality. International Journal of Listening, 17, 68-87