Professional Listening Competence Promoting Well-Being at Work in the Legal Context

Abstract

This qualitative cross-cultural study sought to contribute to the understanding of listening competence, dialogic listening, and the use of human agency in promoting well-being at work. The participant groups (N = 103) consisted of n = 76 U.S.-American and n = 27 Finnish attorneys. Results suggest that in order to examine listening and well-being at work, a term professional listening competence had to be constructed. The results further suggest that a sense of a strong professional listening competence leads to positive experiences of self-efficacy and personal agency regarding the management of professional interaction by listening. These empowering experiences serve to alleviate work-related stress and have a positive effect on well-being at work.Attorneys' well-being is important for their clients because the common goal is to resolve the matter in the best possible way. The better people feel about their jobs, the more they tend to invest in them (Shanafelt et al., 2005). A key component in maintaining and enhancing this well-being is communication. Although researchers have examined the connection between communication, including listening to others, and well-being at work, particularly in business (Juholinless attention has been paid to this connection in the legal context. While the results of these studies support the notion that well-functioning communication relations are closely linked to increased job satisfaction, no conclusive results have been presented on how professionals' listening competence may affect their well-being at work. The gap between research focusing on improving the well-being of others at work through listening and research focusing on the enhancement of one's own well-being at work through listening requires more attention, especially given the scarcity of research focusing on listening in the legal context.