At meetings, are you the first one to take the floor? Do you overlook colleagues who are younger or less assertive? And when someone else is speaking, do you only think about what you will say? Then you should realize that you don’t know how to listen. Yet active listening is an important management skill that helps to create an environment of empathy and trust between you and your colleagues or clients.

If you want to find out how good you are at listening, honestly answer the following questions, which were compiled by hrcommunication.com. As soon as you have doubts about yourself for three of them, it’s time to start thinking about how to keep your mouth shut more often and use your ears more.

• Do you speak more often than others? What percent of the conversation does your speaking usually take up?
• When you are preparing for a conference or another event at which you want to network, are you more interested in what you will say, instead of researching the goals of the people that you want to talk to?
• Think about the last meeting that you attended together with less experienced colleagues or subordinates. Did you let them speak?
• When presenting to an audience, do you allow the audience to participate in the discussion?
• Has anyone ever asked you to accept the role of a facilitator?
• Think about your last big meeting. Can you remember what was left unsaid yet was possible to clearly read between the lines?
• When you give feedback to somebody, do you let them comment on it?
• Has anyone ever praised you for how you are able to understand how others see things?
• Have you ever had to force yourself to keep silent because you realized that it will be an advantage for you?

-kk-