Most people believe they’re good listeners… but they usually aren’t.
Listening is one of those skills we assume we picked up automatically, like walking or talking. But what we actually picked up were habits, and many of those habits work directly against real listening.
Poor listening rarely looks rude or dismissive. More often, it looks busy, distracted, and almost attentive. You’re nodding, making small sounds of agreement, maybe even holding eye contact, but inside you’re already preparing your response. You’re waiting for a pause. You’re lining up your next point. You’re half a sentence away from jumping in.
That isn’t listening. It’s waiting for a gap.
In everyday life, poor listening shows up in subtle but familiar ways. Your body is angled away. Your eyes flick to your phone, the clock, or the door. Your posture says you’re present, while your attention quietly says you’d rather be somewhere else.
And this is where presence really matters.
Listening cannot happen without it. Presence means your attention is actually here, not split between the conversation and what you plan to say next, not drifting toward your to-do list, not scanning for an escape. People can feel the difference instantly. You don’t have to say anything wrong for someone to sense that you’re not fully there.
Interruptions often feel harmless. You jump in to help, to clarify, or to show that you understand. You finish someone’s sentence, offer a solution, or reassure them before they’ve finished explaining what’s actually going on. Sometimes the problem isn’t interruption at all, but drift. Your mind wanders mid-story, you miss something important, and then you try to recover without drawing attention to it.
Excellent listening looks and feels very different.
It begins in the body before it ever shows up in words. Your posture opens. Your body turns toward the person. Your feet, shoulders, and eyes point in the same direction, and your attention stays there. Eye contact is natural and steady, not forced and not fleeting. You allow pauses without rushing to fill them, and you resist the urge to interrupt, even when you’re excited or agree with what’s being said.
Presence shows up here as stillness. You are not leaning forward to pounce on a thought. You are not pulling away when things get emotional. You stay with the speaker, moment by moment, even when there is silence.
One of the most powerful elements of great listening is something many people never learn at all. It comes from the work of Dr Milton Erickson, who understood that people feel deeply heard when they hear their own language reflected back accurately.
Not corrected.
Not improved.
Simply reflected back.
If someone says, “I’m overwhelmed at work and no matter what I do, it never feels like enough,” the instinct for many people is to offer advice or reassurance. A more effective response is, “It sounds like you’re putting in a lot of effort and still feeling like it isn’t enough.”
That kind of response does something subtle but important. The person slows down. They feel understood. And quite often, they continue talking without being pushed.
Another everyday example might sound like this. Someone says, “I don’t know why this keeps bothering me.” The urge is to explain why it shouldn’t, or to interpret what it really means. A better move is simply to reflect it back. “You’re surprised by how much this is still affecting you.”
No fixing. No analysis. Just understanding.
This is why excellent listening creates a sense of safety. And safety is what allows people to think more clearly, speak more honestly, and often resolve things on their own.
If you want to become aware of your own listening habits, there are a few signs worth noticing. Pay attention to the moment you feel excited about jumping in. That’s usually impatience wearing a friendly mask. Notice if you rehearse your response while the other person is still talking. That’s not engagement. It’s competition. And if you catch yourself nodding while your mind has drifted elsewhere, that’s camouflage, not listening.
Becoming a better listener has surprisingly little to do with learning new techniques. It has much more to do with presence and restraint. Restraint from interrupting. Restraint from advising too early. Restraint from making the conversation about you.
When you are genuinely present, people feel it immediately. They relax. They go deeper. They say what actually matters instead of skimming the surface.
When you do less, people tend to say more. And when people feel genuinely heard, conversations become clearer, easier, and far more productive.
Try this in your next conversation. Let your only goal be understanding, not responding. Stay present. Reflect their words. Allow silence to do some of the work. You may be surprised how quickly people notice the difference, and how rarely they forget what it felt like to be truly listened to.
- Mike Mandel
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