When we say that listening shows love, what does that mean? Does it mean we like the other person? Care for them? Hope the best for them?

As the song says, love is a many-splendored thing, so what is the splendor that makes listening loving?  In my other role as professor of communication I had the opportunity to reflect on this question and seek answers. 

Personality, Virtue, or Attitude?

One answer I considered was that people with loving personalities might be better at listening. That is, some people are natural listeners while others are far from it. For example, some of us are ‘people people’ while others prefer to focus on doing tasks. You likely know someone who loves to listen, and by listening well, they love others.

A second answer was that virtuous people listen well. St. Luke writes of this truth: “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” It is likely that listening well springs from a good and loving heart.

And a third answer was that people who like to listen are better at it. That is, people who enjoy a good conversation are likely to engage in them and gain practice while others do not. Or to turn it around—some people dislike listening to others for whatever reason such as it takes effort, and one risks becoming entangled in people’s lives.

With these ideas in mind, I put together a questionnaire that asked people about their personality, virtue, attitudes toward listening, and how well they thought they listened to others. Over five-hundred people took the survey, and the results were enlightening and interesting. 

The study showed that people who scored high on active-empathetic listening (that is, being mindful and heartful while listening to struggling friends and family) were also very likely to be:

Faithful In Relationships

Faithfulness means one is loyal, dependable, and available. In fact, faithfulness was the most telling factor of good listeners! It meant that day to day they are relationally true as a friend, spouse, or sibling. At the call centre we try our best to be dependably here when callers call. Our presence tells callers we care for them.

Lovers of Listening and Conversations

Enjoying listening tells us that some people draw energy from conversations. It may also mean that we need to choose the right attitude. If we find ourselves saying “I just don’t like listening to people” we may have to ask why? Is our poor attitude a result of bad experiences? Can we choose a better attitude? I know from personal experience on the phone line that I have had to pray, “Lord, give me strength and grace to listen well with a good attitude.”

Open to New Ideas

Being open to new ideas indicates we are willing to enter our partner’s mental and emotional world. Just as our own thoughts and feelings are complex, so are others’. Often our callers struggle with dark emotions from hurtful experiences so it takes humility and openness to hear them out to grasp what they feel and think. Understanding and validating caller turmoil conveys loving care. 

Emotionally Stable

Not being overrun with our own emotional problems indicates we need to have our own feelings in check and our tank full. It makes sense to wait until we are well rested and centered before we reach out to a hurting friend, family member, or caller. From the overflow of inner health, we listen well. 

Wise

Being wise, the final feature of good listeners, means we can grasp our partner’s issues and reflect back to them what we are hearing and then prompt possible options for them to consider. It does not mean fixing them or their issue but helping them figure out things for themselves so they can move forward.

So when we say that listening shows love, what does that mean? It means, at least in part, that we are faithfully dependable in our relationship, welcoming of conversations, open to friends’ thoughts and feelings, listening from emotional stability, and responding wisely.
 

Based on the article: Bill Strom, “Do Moral Communicators Make Better Listeners? Personality, Virtue and Receiver Apprehension as Predictors of Active Empathetic-Listening, ” International Journal of Listening, Routledge Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2019.1705160