The first step in active listening is giving the speaker your full attention before you reply. Guides differ on the name: some call it paying attention, others make eye contact the first move, so there is no single agreed first step.
A colleague says they felt left out of the project, and you put your phone down, face them, and just listen. That focused pause is the first step at work.
Active listening starts with one thing: before you reply, give the speaker your full attention. Phone down, eyes on them, and no quiet planning of your comeback. Guides differ on the name, with some starting from eye contact, so treat this as the usual answer, not a universal rule.
Your teammate says the new schedule is wearing them out, and you stop typing, turn toward them, and just listen. Nothing clever happens yet. Only attention, and attention comes first.
A story reported about Carl Rogers, through an author's paraphrase rather than a direct quote, points the same way: WWII gunners burdened by war were simply listened to, without response, until they felt unburdened. In that telling, pure listening was the opening move.
Someone says, Tell me everything, I am not going to interrupt. That invitation to be heard, with no reply offered yet, is the first step in action. It is small, quiet, and easy to skip, which is exactly why it counts as the first step.
Whose first step?
Different guides put different things first, so the honest answer is that there is no single agreed first step. One model starts with perception, some lists start with paying attention, one writer makes eye contact the opening move, a five-stage model starts with receiving, which simply means taking in the words the other person says, and Carl Rogers is paraphrased as naming patient non-intervention as one of his first skills.
That wording matters. The Rogers claim says one of the first skills, not the one and only first step, and it reaches us through an author's paraphrase rather than a direct quote. Treat it as a view within a personal account, not a fixed rule.
Likewise, the eye-contact version comes from one author's own step list, offered as a rough guideline with the note that steady but relaxed eye contact is enough. None of these sources claims a universal first step, so when someone asks for the first step, they are really asking which guide's first step.