• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Paddy Spruce | Confident Public Speaking

Confident Public Speaking

  • Home
  • About Paddy
  • Blog
  • Contact

Listening as a way of influencing others

June 18, 2008 by Paddy

Tweet

Listening is often seen as a weak way of influencing others. It can be as strong as the most assertive behaviour. It is similar to not taking the bait and entering into a useless argument. It is not strong to respond to a baiting comment. It is strong to resist this primal urge.

A simple way of resisting the urge to fight back verbally is to ask questions or actively listen when pressured instead of fighting back or becoming sternly silent. By actively listen, I mean to paraphrase what has been said in your own words to prove that you have been listening. Be careful of your tone or facial expression as any hint of aggression or sarcasm with make matters worse.

So try this next time you are pressured by others.

  1. Breathe in
  2. Pause
  3. Ask an question
  4. Confirm that you have understood the answer e.g. ‘So you are too busy to help me today.’
  5. Ask another question e.g. ‘When do you think you will have the time to help me?’

Filed Under: Influencing & Negotiating skills

Footer

Latest Blog Posts

Allostatic load

Allostatic load is the wear and tear on our body caused by stress and worry. We can get stressed by dealing with actual events. We can also get stressed by imaginary events. Our body reacts the same to real or imagined events. Mark Twain wrote that we all have tragedies in our lives…some of which […]

A new normal

There is still time to establish your new normal. We are likely to get past coronavirus this year and settle back into what we call normal. There is still time to decide what we want this normal to look like. Do we go back to what we did before or do we deliberately decide what […]

Subscribe to my blog and newsletter

Subscribe to my mailing list

* indicates required

How to contact Paddy

Ph: +61 (0)418 996 970

Paddy is located in Melbourne, Australia and welcomes requests from beyond.

  • LinkedIn

Copyright © 2021 Paddy Spruce