Many communicators try to make themselves look smart. Great listeners are more interested in making their audiences feel smart. They help people approach their own views with more humility, doubt, and curiosity. When people have a chance to express themselves out loud, they often discover new thoughts. As the writer E. M. Forster put it, “How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?” That understanding made Forster an unusually dedicated listener. In the words of one biographer, “To speak with him was to be seduced by an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity
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