Listening is an underrated skill that improves the quality of thinking

October 30, 2025 Published by Sharee Johnson

Listening is an under rated skill in human communication. Doctors, psychologists and many other clinicians assume themselves to be good active listeners, the evidence is not so partisan.  There is research for example showing that doctors interrupt their patients after a median of 11 seconds. In the leadership literature there is research to show that the higher up the hierarchy you are, the more likely you are to interrupt!

Nancy Kline says that ‘deep attentive listening ignites the human mind”. She goes on to say that this kind of listening is based on courage and that this kind of attention is not a technique, rather becoming present.

My psychologist, coach supervisor introduced me to Kline’s work by saying things like “if we enter Kline’s kind of thinking space…” , which seemed to mean an open field with me doing all the talking.  After a little bit of my own research and study, I discovered that is indeed what is happening.

Kline’s idea is that the coach acts as a catalyst for the client’s ideas, without putting words in their mouth, making the coach paradoxically “essential and irrelevant”.  Her own view of interrupting is that this is “arrogance masquerading as efficiency… it stops the thinking of one person, in favour of another”.

Ouch, did you feel that, or was it just me?!!

Kline suggests that people are not really listening, they are waiting for their turn to speak. Gosh I could go on for a long time with this. In the case of interrupting, people are not even waiting, they are assuming what they have to say is more deserving, has more value, than whatever the speaker is saying. Sure, sometimes that is out of resonance or excitement, it’s not always malicious. It is perhaps, a lack of awareness. Effective medical leaders might need to be skilled at self awareness.

Last week I heard of:

• a Medical Head of Department (HoD) in a large metro hospital who fills up meetings with their own talking, rarely pausing to let others speak. Leaving my client wondering why the meeting was called.
• a COO in a large metro hospital who uses so much distracting language that no one really understands what they are talking about. To date, according to my client, no one has asked them what they mean because they don’t believe they will gain any clarity. My client at least, has lost their voice in any ‘conversation’ with the COO simply nodding and smiling for the duration of any interaction. Hardly effective communication.
• a CMO in a large regional hospital who denied the feedback an SMO was endeavouring to share and refused to meet rather than be curious and learn.

What is a doctor to do in these circumstances where they feel unheard, powerless, ignored?

Some of the doctors I meet in coaching are deeply wounded by their experiences of not being heard.  
Some have never considered what it is like to be in conversation with them, they are blind to their own impact, positive or negative, immersed in what they have to say, in what they think and wondering why they don’t have more influence.

Coaching can be a place where you discover your own patterns of communication, where you learn to listen and where you learn what being listened to is like.  That open field that allows space for you to hear yourself think can be a little unnerving, unfamiliar. In Kline’s words, coaches can offer clients “an unalloyed experience of independent thinking”,  liberating the human mind.

I wonder what you might learn in that open space of being deeply listened to, that is designed to help you think better?
Kline invites us to raise the quality of our thinking, first by raising the quality of our listening. Doctors can begin to raise the quality of their listening, thinking and relationships by practicing not interrupting their patients, each other and their colleagues from other domains. Engaging a coach might be essential to help you see, hear and break out of your old patterns, to unlearn so that you can relearn how to communicate effectively, even if they don’t seem to be saying very much!  Deep present listening is a rare commodity in the modern world, and that’s exactly it’s beauty.

References
Phillips, KA etc Physicians Interrupting Patients. J Gen Intern Med. Oct 2019
Keltner, D. Don’t Let Power Corrupt You. Harvard Business Review, Oct 2016
Kline, Nancy.  (1999) Time To Think. Listening to Ignite the Human Mind. Octopus, GB
www.timetothink.com various articles

Sharee Johnson is the Founder of Coaching for Doctors, Psychologist Coach, Author or The Thriving Doctor, Speaker.