I’ve written about the importance of tailoring your message when you want someone to embrace your recommendation, and about how to make sure your team understands what kinds of decisions you want to be involved in. But what about strategies for being a better listener? Intrinsically as a leader, I knew that listening is essential. I’d observed the struggle in myself and most of the leaders I know, and it was clear that we could be doing better.

All of us are guilty of having a listening gap at least some of the time. Think of this as the difference between the speaker’s interaction goal — what they’re looking to get from the conversation — and how the listener actually responds. Each of us has a default listening style, but it doesn’t always align with what the person speaking to us wants or needs in that moment.

More times than I should confess, my executives — and, frankly, my children — had left a conversation with me feeling like they hadn’t been heard. When our human resources team surveyed my executive leaders, I learned that they didn’t feel celebrated as much as they needed to be because I was so excited to jump in and move them forward. On a more personal front, my son avoided meaningful conversations because I always wanted to accelerate his cause, even at times when that wasn’t what he wanted from me.

To be clear, I thought I was listening pretty well. The effects of my listening behaviors evaded me until I went through the course built by two Duarte communication strategists, Nicole Lowenbraun and Maegan Stephens. With their training and coaching, I began to understand that good listening is more than giving the person speaking your full attention or putting away your cellphone (although doing both is still essential). Tips like “avoid judgment” don’t account for times when our colleagues, clients, and vendors actually want us to pressure-test what they’re saying. Even the much-hyped practice of active listening falls short.

What I learned is this: There isn’t one right way to listen all the time.

Instead, great listeners adapt the way they listen to help the person speaking accomplish their goals and meet their needs. Each of us might be entrenched in one kind of listening style, but the good news is that once we recognize this pattern, we can adjust our approach so that we choose the most effective form of listening for a particular situation.

Four Listening Styles for Four Types of Situations

Lowenbraun and Stephens maintain that while you might think there are infinite responses to the question, “What does the person speaking want from me?” there are only four in the workplace — to Immerse, to Discern, to Advance, or to Support. (See “The Four Styles of Adaptive Listening.”)

Duarte next explains what those concepts mean and how to choose when to use each.