The starting point for active listening is, as Oprah puts it, making people feel as though you’re really listening to them. Regardless of your listening style, listening function, or the situation, active listening always includes attentiveness to the speaker (Purdy & Newman, 1999). When speaking, you look for nonverbal and verbal signs that your listeners are paying attention, such as those that signal positive feedback. When listening, you can provide speakers with the same signals. For example, eye contact is an especially powerful indicator of active listening. In fact, if you break eye contact while someone else is talking, that person is likely to assume that you’ve stopped listening. He or she may even stop and say something like, “Am I boring you?” or “Do you need to leave?” (Goodwin, 1981).

To improve your listening skills, you can manage your feedback by following four guidelines. First, make your feedback positive. Lean forward, sit or stand in a position that lets you directly face the speaker, and use your facial expressions to mirror the emotions of what’s being discussed. Above all else, look at the speaker while he or she is talking. Avoid behaviors that might be mistaken as negative feedback. For example, something as simple as glancing at your cell phone or someone who’s walking by could give the impression that you’re bored or that you want the encounter to end.

Second, make your feedback obvious. No matter how attentively you listen, unless speakers notice your feedback, they won’t know you’re listening. To ensure that speakers can perceive your feedback, make sure your vocal feedback (“Uh-huh,” “Yes”) is loud enough for them to hear, and that your visual feedback (smiling, head nodding) is visible to them.

Third, make your feedback appropriate. Some situations call for intense, almost aggressive feedback—for example, a musician urging the audience to participate during a concert, or a coach trying to pump her team up before a big game. In situations like these, you’re expected to use dramatic behaviors—clapping, jumping up and down—to show that you’re interested and paying attention. In other settings, it’s more appropriate to use quieter feedback, such as sustaining eye contact when listening to a romantic partner or nodding when listening to a group member describe the budget for a fund-raising dance.

Finally, make your feedback immediate. Always provide feedback as soon as you can. If you wait too long to provide the feedback, the speaker may not recognize the response as feedback, or may even infer that you’re not listening (such as when you say “Uh-huh, yeah” several seconds after he or she has finished talking). To see how managing your feedback and other active listening skills can influence an encounter, go to How to Communicate: Active Listening on pages 180–181.