Top 14 Books About Listening Updated 04 /2024

It's lovely to be able to talk to someone and feel like you're being heard. Active listening is a gift that we get, but it's also a gift that we can give to other people as well. Active listening is a skill that can help you become a better listener and a better communicator. These are the best books on the subject.

They will help you figure out how to improve your listening skills so that you can understand more of what others say and show this understanding in your responses. In these books, you'll learn how to be more friendly and approachable to your coworkers, family, or friends when you use the skills they teach you.

I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships

There are a lot of things that go into active listening, but validation, also known as "I understand," is one of them.

The author and relationship coach of this book, Michael S. Sorensen, talks about the whats, whys, and hows of this important communication skill in this book. If you want to improve your relationship with your spouse, navigate difficult work talks, or connect on a deeper level with friends and family, this book will help you get there.

learn:

Assuage the worries, fears, and doubts of other people.

Feelings of love, respect, and appreciation in your romantic relationships will go up.

Quickly solve, or even stop, arguments.

Help people see things from your point of view.

Sticky advice and feedback is what you should give to your friends and family.

Even if you don't know how to "fix" the problem, you can still help and encourage other people, even if you don't know what to do.

A lot of people like this book because it's fun and easy to read, but the ideas it shares can have a big impact on how you think about and deal with relationships in every part of your life.

Active Listening Techniques: 30 Practical Tools to Hone Your Communication Skills

Active Listening Techniques is a book that has 30 communication tools that you can use to make sure that the people you talk to feel heard, respected, and understood.

The skills you learn will not only help you become a more attentive listener, but they will also help you get your point across, build better relationships, and even make more money at work.

Basic active listening skills, such as the importance of paraphrasing, nonverbal cues, emotional labeling, mirroring, validation, and other basic active listening techniques, are covered in this lesson.

Useful ways to use each tool: Each communication tool comes with an example and a few easy-to-follow steps to help you apply the concept to your daily life.

How to deal with conflict: How to use active listening when you're in a situation that's difficult or emotional to deal with

The Lost Art of Listening

Other people listen as one person talks.

The way it should be, right?

Psychologist Michael P. Nichols has written a witty book about how most people think they are better listeners than they are, and he shows us how to learn the lost art of listening.

Thousands of people have used the ideas in this book to break through problems and change their personal and professional relationships.

Is there a way to get a refund?

Because we often don't connect when we talk to family members, romantic partners, coworkers, or friends, we don't get to know them.

When emotions get in the way of real communication, how can we get through to each other

How can you be heard and understood even when things are difficult for you to deal with?

This book also includes examples and exercises that make the ideas come to life in real-life situations, so that you can become more aware of your thoughts each time you're in a conversation and become more aware of your thoughts over time.

Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Making someone understand you is both a skill and an art.

There are times when things can get worse if you can't break through emotional barriers and get your message across.

This book by Mark Goulston is about how to make the people in your life who are "impossible" and "unreachable" into allies, loyal customers, long-term friends, and business partners. Goulston has worked as a psychiatrist, a business consultant, and a coach.

How: Just Listen shows you how to:

Do everything you can to make a strong and good first impression.

It's important to listen well.

Talk an angry or aggressive person out of a bad reaction and into a better one.

You must get people to agree with you in order to be able to persuade them, negotiate, or sell them something.

Coworkers, friends, family, or complete strangers are all people you can get to listen to you. The first step to convincing anyone to do anything is to get them to listen to what you have to say. This book on active listening will give you the tools you need to do just that.

You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

We live in a world where social media always tells us to start the conversation and share our own stories.

As a side note, though, it doesn't seem like there's enough emphasis on actually listening to people.

Then, it's making us less tolerant than we have ever been.

There is a book called You're Not Listening by Kate Murphy, who is a New York Times contributor and a listener by trade. She talks about why we're not listening, what it's doing to us, and how we can stop it.

Her book talks about the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening, as well as some of the best listeners in the world. She also introduces us to the CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman.

Overall, Murphy gives a heartfelt, passionate, and insightful view of society. He also gives a rousing call-to-action to help readers make positive changes on a personal level.

Listening: The Forgotten Skill

In the book Listening: The Forgotten Skill, a lot of people learn how to listen well and make it a powerful business tool.

It's one of the best books on active listening because it uses an interactive learning method and comes with worksheets, charts, and self-tests that help you keep track of your own progress as you learn.

learn:

Make sure you don't have any distractions so you can pay attention to what is being said.

Listen for words, phrases, and ideas that are important.

Cut through your own biases when you listen.

Find out what body language tells you.

Ask good, non-threatening questions that get real information.

Get people to listen to you

Master a range of listening skills that you can use on the job and in your personal life

The skills you learn in this book will help you avoid the kinds of misunderstood and misdirected messages that cost businesses millions of dollars.

The Compassionate Connection: The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening

If we want to connect with people and truly understand what they're going through, we need to be able to show compassion and be mindful when we listen.

A book by Dr. David Rakel called The Compassionate Connection talks about the power of human connection and how people can use it to improve their own health and well-being.

The tasks and stress of everyday life can make us feel like we're not connected to anyone else.

When we learn to use compassion's healing power, we not only strengthen our relationships with other people, but we also do good for ourselves in the process.

The tools in this book can help us improve the quality of our relationships, whether with a doctor, a spouse, a child, or a boss and employee.

4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication in Love, Life, Work - Anywhere!

Keys to Effective Communication is a book that talks about how to communicate better with people who are close to us.

You'll learn skills that will help you:

As you listen to the other person, pay more attention to what they are saying and how they are feeling.

Don't let listening get in the way of effective communication.

Empathize with each other in order to reach a mutual understanding.

People can calmly and successfully deal with conflicts and disagreements.

On a regular basis, take care of your relationships.

Experience the power of saying "thank you" and "thank you."

It also comes with a 12-Day Communication Challenge and Action Guide at the end, so you can practice each skill one at a time and make a plan for your own growth.

Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All

Listening is more difficult than it looks, but it can make or break your business.

In Power Listening, Bernard Ferrari, a top executive adviser, talks about how poor listening can make people make bad decisions in organizations. He also shows how good listening habits can be learned and practiced.

Here are some of his most important ideas about how to be a good listener:

A hard job, not a simple one

It means asking questions, questioning all assumptions, and understanding the context of every interaction you have with someone.

It gives you a new sense of focus, more efficiency, and a better chance of making better decisions.

Can make the difference between a long and short job.

To turn a "tin ear" into one with platinum ears, you'll learn how to ask thoughtful questions, affirm your conversation partner, and show that you're truly present while reading this book.

Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

When we can't avoid having hard conversations, we need a book called Crucial Conversations. It helps us get ready for the ones we can't avoid.

Those times when your friend is angry and wants to talk to you, as well as those times when you really need to talk.

There are ways to get rid of anger, defensiveness or resentment so that you can talk with your partner and find a solution that both of you can agree on.

learn:

Prepare for high-stakes talks.

Give people the chance to talk about almost anything.

Emotions that are unpleasant can be turned into powerful dialogue.

Be persuasive, not angry.

This book will help you improve your conversation skills and emotional intelligence in a wide range of areas, including how you deal with negotiations both at work and in your personal life.

Final Thoughts

Improve your active listening skills for as long as you can, and you'll get a lot back in the end. Why?

Because the simple truth is that we don't learn from talking; we learn from listening, so that's why.

While there is a place for giving back, we learn so much more by taking in the wisdom and experiences that surround us.

So, thank you for "listening" to me as I talked about some of the best books on active listening with you. I hope you found something that interested you.

---