Styles of Listening

I think that I am a people centered listener. I feel that when I listen to people I have compassion for them and try to be as understanding as possible of their emotions. When interacting with others, I always try to compromise and I think that I work well in groups. I feel comfortable in both groups and interpersonal situations.
I think I learned this approach from my family. My father is a therapist so he is always encouraging me to be aware of other people’s feelings and take them into consideration. My mother is also very compassionate and always shows me that she cares about my feelings when she is listening to me. I think in this case, I learned by example through my parents.
This approach works effectively in most situations. When you are talking to other people, they want to know that you care about what they are saying, and I think that I am pretty good at doing that. I do not think that this approach is appropriate in all situations. If you are talking to a boss or in a professional conversation, focusing on emotions might not be the best way to listen. In this case, you should focus on content while you are listening.
I can remember one time I was talking with a friend and she seemed very upset. I was not actually listening to the words she was saying but how she was saying them. I detected a lot of strong emotions in her voice and I asked her if she was ok. She, however, did not want to talk about whatever was bothering her and actually got mad at me when I asked. She thought I was not listening to anything she was saying. In this case, I used people-centered listening to interpret the way she was saying things, but she wanted me to use content centered listening and just listen to what she was actually saying. I now know for the future that some people would rather have you focus on what they are saying rather than how they are saying it.