Glossary

Active listening

Ενεργητική ακρόαση

Listening whose purpose is to check your understanding rather than to prepare your answer. It is visible from the outside: the listener says back what they understood, in their own words, and treats the correction as the useful part.

Also known asreflective listening, paraphrasing
Named byCarl Rogers & Richard Farson (1957)
Belongs to the skillCommunication
Level1

How to spot it

You can spot the opposite of it in yourself with one question: while they were talking, was I building a sentence?

The research behind the term

The term is not our invention. It comes from published research, and what follows is what that research found — our own synthesis of the published abstract, not a translation of the original.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligenceπηγή

The book sets out the decisive role of emotional intelligence in effective leadership. The authors argue that successful leaders stand out not only for their technical knowledge but above all for their ability to recognize, manage, and influence their own emotions and those of their colleagues. Different leadership styles and their effects on team performance are also presented.

Practised in

The term does not stay a definition. It appears inside missions where the pattern happens in real time and you have to recognise it as it happens to you.

  • The Misunderstood Email

    Level 1

Sources

Every claim on this page maps to published research. The citations link to the original source.

  1. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence — Source on store.hbr.org