LISTENING STYLE ASSESSMENT
Rate yourself with the sliders (1–5). Your dominant style and a breakdown chart will appear at the end.
Do colleagues and friends say you are a good listener? Whatever role you play in a team, listening is a vital ingredient in your own and the team’s success. Without listening, there is misunderstanding, duplication of effort, disagreements, disengagement, lower wellbeing, and less creativity. New ideas emerge in the space between people in teams. And when we aren’t listening to each other’s perspectives and insights, we’re not making the most of the rich resources we have.
In research, 75% of people think they are above or well above average in their listening abilities. Only 12% of those people rated their colleagues as having above or well above-average abilities. We’re biased – we think we are better than others at listening.
NOTE:This assessment is in two parts. First, we will ask you to reflect on the way you listen to others. In the second, you will hear recorded messages and we will ask you questions on these to rate how good a listener you are and the information you focus on when listening.
Rate your listening abilities
We also know that people can learn to become better listeners. To do so, we need to take a hard look at ourselves and ask friends, colleagues, and loved ones for their views on our abilities. We also need to improve how we listen by emulating those around us who do it well.
Improve your listening skills by listening to one conversation at a time – seek to have connected conversations with the people around you.
Interpreting your results – what should you expect to learn?
The listening style questionnaire you just completed helps people understand whether a particular listening style dominates – we'll unpack what that means below and how to interpret your results.
Before you can listen properly, you need to be able to listen to your own body and mind — and to your listening biases.
Awareness of our listening biases is about recognising some of the intrinsic filters that influence how we hear and understand others. We might hear what someone says but still miss the true value or intent behind their words.
Interpreting your results – what’s your listening style tendency?
The result from the assessment provides information on whether you tend to have a listening style which is:
- Relational-oriented
- Analytical-oriented
- Critical-oriented
- Task-oriented
Your main two listening styles
Your results indicate that you are more dominant with the following two listening styles:
We’ve set out your score for each listening style in the chart above, along with descriptions of your less dominant listening styles. Think about whether any of your colleagues reflect these tendencies.
Your less dominant listening styles
Your next coaching steps to deepen collaboration with colleagues
Thanks for completing the assessment. To deepen your learning, ask your colleagues for feedback on your listening stance — we all have blind spots. Their perspectives help refine your awareness.
Deepen your understanding of your abilities by taking stage two of our assessment. Listen to a series of recordings and answer some questions.