What does it mean to listen not only to someone’s words but to their emotions? What if we could lead not by having all the answers, but by creating space for “all the feels?” What if a connection was built first with empathy and honor for the individual instead of a frantic search for common ground?
This year, I plan to find out.
The challenge
This year, instead of making yet another New Year’s resolution, a friend challenged me to choose a word of the year—one word, theoretically, to guide my thoughts and actions.
I chose the word “attuned.”
What is attunement?
A quick dictionary search reveals that attune is a verb meaning “to bring into harmony” or “to make aware or responsive.” For me, attunement means being open, present, and available to my emotions and those of others. It means going with my gut, being acutely aware of how I feel, and connecting with others in a more meaningful, productive way.
Being attuned combines active listening, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness to foster deeper connections and greater understanding—skills every leader, and therefore every veterinarian needs every day.
Tuning in
Communication is foundational to our personal and professional well-being. Although we often focus on speaking, listening is the most important trait of an effective communicator.
Accurate, unbiased observation of someone else’s perspective and experience makes us more empathetic parents, partners, and professionals—and generally better people. The art of listening to understand without replying or problem-solving is challenging to cultivate but ensures we respond with wisdom and clarity. Our reply demonstrates that we understand the other person’s circumstance or challenge as they perceive it rather than as a third party with our own ideas and agenda.
In some instances, merely being a safe place for someone else’s emotions clears space for a natural solution—without us having to say a thing. Now that’s powerful!
Practical steps to better attunement
If building deep connections with your colleagues and clients sounds time-consuming, don’t panic. There are many ways to be a more perceptive listener and leader—even when you’re double booked and running late. They include:
- Sharpening your emotional intelligence — Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of others. It is a key skill for leaders that can impact an entire practice or organization. We can improve our emotional quotient (EQ) by practicing self-awareness (i.e., knowing our strengths and weaknesses) and self-regulation (i.e., recognizing and managing our emotions). I routinely encourage mentees to self-reflect on these areas and ask their mentors for feedback. Enlisting a trusted mentor or advisor who can help you objectively assess your performance is a great way to grow your personal EI/EQ.
- Attending to the other person — When someone is speaking, give them your full attention. Put down the phone, tablet, or chart. Look away from the computer. Remove your stethoscope from your ears. Practice active listening skills, such as eye contact, leaning in, facing the speaker, nodding, and using verbal acknowledgments (e.g., “Uh huh”). These actions show the speaker you’re listening and simultaneously help you be more present.
- Listening to understand – There is a known lag time between what we hear and what our brain understands. In that gap, distractions, confirmation bias, thoughts, and emotions bubble up and prevent comprehension. We can reduce this effect by keeping an open mind and trusting that the person’s emotions or perceptions—no matter how illogical or inappropriate—are the truth.
- Practicing shared decision-making — Shared decision-making involves acknowledging our clients’ perceptions, values, beliefs, and experiences as valid and relevant to their pet care decisions. While we don’t need to know exactly what these things are, recognizing their importance and weight can help us tune in to our client’s needs, concerns, and points of view and make authentic connections. Check out my latest ebook to learn more about the power of shared decision-making in practice!
- Withholding judgment — There’s no faster way to end a conversation or crush a budding connection than by interrupting the speaker with your thoughts or opinions. Listening to someone with the belief that they are wrong leads to competitive listening and shuts down any chance of genuine communication.Similarly, suspending self-judgment when you tune in to your own emotions helps you assess them with neutrality, avoiding negative biases such as guilt, doubt, or shame. Lead with curiosity, asking yourself how you feel and why.
- Taking time to respond — Acknowledging someone else’s feelings or experiences can be profound. Give the moment the respect it deserves by taking time to consider what you’ve heard. Pausing gives the speaker and the listener time to breathe and reflect.
- Seeking clarification with open-ended questions — This tenant of active listening also applies to attunement. Open-ended questions allow for deeper exploration and improved understanding.
- Acknowledging feelings — Whether they’re yours or someone else’s, “right” or “wrong,” or positive or negative, acknowledging emotions helps everyone feel seen, heard, and understood. Avoid telling someone how they should feel. Instead, focus on naming emotions and building connections by validating (e.g., “You have every reason to be upset”) and empathizing (e.g., “I know what you are going through”).
Finely tuned
Being attuned means experiencing the world differently, in a way that’s more authentic, challenging, and yes, at times, uglier. Diving deeper uncovers things we’d like to hide, but it also cuts through artifice, breaks down walls, and clears a path for solid, lasting human connection. Let’s make this the year we listen to not only what’s said, but also what is felt, and use those insights to make us better caregivers, veterinarians, leaders, and humans.
Your turn: What word will you choose?
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