Listening Skills - Types of Bad Listeners

Types of Bad Listeners

What are the main types of bad listeners?

You might find in your work environment that some individuals are simply not very good at listening. This can create a myriad of problems and make the performance of the most mundane day to day tasks nearly impossible to accomplish.

But there are ways of helping these people improve their listening skills. But first, we need to take a look at what kind of “bad listeners” are out there.

There are essentially three types of bad listeners. They are self absorbed individuals, unfocused individuals, and rules driven individuals.

Self absorbed people will always place their own priorities above everyone else’s. They are quite often stubborn and opinionated people. They are also quite eager to get everyone else to agree with them, and thus are not the best at listening to or expressing interest in other people’s opinions. Self absorbed people are the type who seem to know everything and thus do not have the desire or the will to listen to what anyone else has to say about something.

Then there are the unfocused individuals. These people tend to be quite messy and disorganized. They are often forgetful, and hardly ever finish the projects they start on. In order to get through life, these individuals are in dire need of structure and some direction – and it must come from others. Since they cannot stay focused on anything for an extended duration, this prevents them from fully understanding what they are being told in a conversation. It also prevents them from taking action once they are told to do something.

Finally, there are the rules driven individuals. Such individuals may be able to listen, but they are overly cautious about everything. It is almost like they are listening a little too well, because they wind up focusing on the minor, small details, and are thus unable to see the big picture. This means that they are only listening to a small part of what is being said to them.

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