31 Questions to Test Your Listening Skills

1. Are you contributing something?
2. Are you learning something?
3. Are you aware of your personal bias that gets in the way of listening effectively?
4. Are you granting others space to talk?
5. Are you known as ‘someone who really LISTENS’ or ‘The guy who never shuts up’?
6. Are you listening or controlling the conversation?
7. Are you listening or trying to fix?
8. Are you listening or waiting to talk?
9. Are you listening to the silences beneath people’s words?
10. Are your eyes listening?
11. At what point do you usually stop listening?
12. Can you hear over your own ego?
13. Did you listen twice as much as you talked?
14. Do you know when to be silent?
15. Do you make it easy for others to talk?
16. How can you listen to these silences?
17. How do you demonstrate that you’ve listened?
18. How much time do you spend preparing to listen?
19. How well do you listen to yourself?
20. What can you say that will contribute?
21. What can you say that will make a difference?
22. What could you do to listen non-judgmentally?
23. What is emerging now?
24. What message was sent but not spoken?
25. What type of conversation do you want this to become?
26. When was the last time someone complimented your listening skills?
27. When was the last time you listened, all the way through, to an idea that made you uncomfortable?
28. When you realize it doesn’t apply to you; do you keep listening?
29. Where does your emotional reactivity come from?
30. Will this comment disrupt or contribute?
31. Would YOU be compelled to listen to you?