Interpersonal skills are one of the most important soft skills when it comes to practical life. Almost every person either a job seeker or an entrepreneur has to adopt these skills in their life. Without these skills, you cannot perform well professionally. A person lacking these skills has to face a lot of troubles regarding social interactions as a result his productivity alleviates. On the other hand, people with strong interpersonal skills gravitate toward strong interactions in their personal life as well as in their professional life. Having a strong grip on your interpersonal skills will make you 5 years forward in your life. Personal with strong interpersonal skills are always admitted and act as a magnet to others. Keep in mind that these skills will benefit you if you do them with sincerity. You cannot force yourself but when your purpose is clear and you are determined. These skills will provide you with positive results in every area of your life.
WHAT ARE INTERPERSONAL SKILLS?
Interpersonal skills are the skills of how effectively we can communicate with other people around us, especially in our workplace.
The stronger the interpersonal skills, the more effective our synergy with them. Based on these skills, our ability to maintain social relationships, either at home or in the workplace, is measured. These skills are majorly specified by using the term communication but it has also other factors include in it like taking care of your teammates, building a strong and confident relationship with them, staying positive most of the time, helping your team members, pursuing them to do their best, motivate them and all most than that. We will discuss all that aspects in the below section. People intentionally and unintentionally are using their interpersonal skills while interacting with anyone.
In simple terms, it is taken as the ability of a person to work with others.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE:
Imagine you have just now started working for an organization in which you are asked to work in the form of a group but you don’t know how to start a conversation and how to divide all the given tasks in the form of a group to produce effective content. You can never able to produce high-quality results. You will end up doing a lot of undirected work and as a result, your productivity will decrease.
ADVANTAGES OF INTERPERSONAL SKILLS:
Every one of us knows that man is a social animal. It means man has to maintain social relationships with other people surrounding them. To survive and to live your life stress-free and to your fullest, we need other people. When you stepped into your professional life, most of the chances are you will focus on your hard skill and neglect soft skills that are vital to increasing your productivity and they always prove advantageous. Other aspects can be a person can never master every skill, here skill is referring to hard skill, so he cannot do all of the stuff on his own. He has to maintain interaction with others to do these tasks for him.
In the business world, it is important for a person with good interpersonal skills
- Can do a lot better in job interviews as the interviewer wants people who can work in harmony with other employees of the organization
- Can better deals with their clients and they have influencing powers to pursue people
- Can be a true leader and can guide his team to work efficiently
- can produce high-quality work
- Is productive with his work and does it efficiently
- Is more happy and satisfied with life than a person lacking these skills
HIGHLY REQUIRED INTERPERSONAL SKILLS: interpersonal skills itself is a highly required skill but certain areas fall under the category of personal development. These are:
Team Working. Team building is a collective word that is used when a certain number of people work on a specific task collectively. Team building is essential to get the most productive outcomes which are hard for an individual mind to produce. They share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions and respect each other’s ideas. In team building, a person trusts their team members and achieves their tasks more efficiently.
Emotional Empathy. It is also known as cognitive empathy. It means you can understand others’ emotions and feelings. It can be frustration or disagreement with something. Emotional Empathy means not only understanding but making your team members comfortable with you. Broadly speaking, it is a way in which both persons are willing to share their thoughts and sacrifice for each other.
Professionalism. It is another term for emotional Intelligence (EI). Such a person has certain characteristics such as he is aware of his strengths and weakness and instead of focusing on weaknesses he works on his strengths. A person who focuses on his weaknesses is more prone to be mediocre but a person who is working on his strengths will be a beast on the behalf of his strengths.
Social Skills. As indicated by the name this term is described as a person who is more open socially, and interacts with people openly. Body language plays an important role in social skills if your body language is open, you will attract more people but if you are shy, introverted, and likes to sit in a corner of the room, you will never be able to socialize. Here, it is worth quoting that if you have no social skills you can practice them and master them.
Critical Thinking. Critical thinking is important to deal with abrupt responses. It is defined as a logical process to analyze any situation deeply by keeping in mind all its aspects affecting it and extracting the best possible solution to the problem. The condition here is a person has minimum time and has to pick up the best possible solution to the problem.
Encouragement and Motivating Others. Interpersonal skills would be incomplete without adding these skills to them. Motivating others create a peaceful environment and a sense of satisfaction in you. It is normal for us to deviate from our goals or we lose our focus. In such a situation, everybody needs a person to motivate him/her. When working in an organization, a peaceful environment is necessary to be productive and one of the best ways to be productive is motivation.
Subtle Communication Skills. The purpose of communication is to transfer information, ideas, and opinion between different people. A subtle communication skill means a person can speak with clarity, precision, and pitch enough that a hearer can absorb maximum information from a speaker. A good speaker can transfer the maximum amount of information to the hearer. A good characteristic of subtle communication is to speak only when it is required. This is a character without which subtle communication will be incomplete.
Coaxing. One of the most important interpersonal skills is this skill. Almost 80% of businesses are based on making and selling products and coaxing is a technique that helps you to pursue your clients to buy the products you have created. Broadly speaking, influence people on exactly what you want them to do. There is no force, they will get willing to do it by themselves.
The Art of Speaking. It is related to public speaking in which a person has to demonstrate an idea in front of a large number of people. It includes sharing a proper piece of information that has fine details about the topic, engaging the audience, pursuing the audience, entertaining them, and adding information to their knowledge. At that time, the most noticeable thing about you is your words and your body language. A person can learn the art of speaking by practicing in front of a small number of trusted people and then transferring to a large number of people.
Be an Effective Ally. It is a state of conventionally merging with a person or a group of persons to reach a common goal. Being an ally helps you to accomplish your tasks more productively and easily rather them working alone. It helps you to stay focused and motivates you to work efficiently. You, along with your team members, will get the best possible outcomes for your goal. This term is not only surrounding you but also the other members of your team. You will help them with the challenges they are facing and as a reward, you will feel confident and it also allow you to get social with them.
Give Ears to Every Word. Most of the problems in our daily life will get solved if we listen properly to what a person is saying. Sometimes, we lack a piece of proper information and end up making trashy mistakes. It will allow the presence of mind and you can respond more effectively than before. A simple trick to do this is taking interest in every topic which is discussed. There is no such thing I have no interest in it. Everyone can generate interest in a subject they want. Focus on listening instead of hearing.
Conflict Handling. Collaborative skills and conflict are contrary to each other. Conflict resolution means solving a problem that has been created between two people. It could either be a personal problem or a work-related problem. Such problems can be a reason to alleviate your productivity and creates a communication gap between team members. Here is how to effectively handle a conflict. First of all, listen to both of the parties to know the exact problem. Then analyze the problem, make sure to be calm in the whole process, and try not to favor any person basis on your relationship with them. Use neutral language and talk to both parties individually and finally announce your agreement and disagreement.
Be Patient and Tolerant. Patience transforms you as a person and it also helps in building a strong relationship. It allows you to stay calm and you begin to think from another perspective. It will help you to get less irritated. It is often said that patience is God-Gifted but you can accomplish it also with a little effort. The only way to acquire patience is to try to think about others’ perspectives. When you do that you get to know they were only being self-centered.
Gain Trust and Respect. This is something you will get only when you are worthy. People in this era are only worried about earning money but gaining trust and respect is even more important than earning money. It is also true that to acquire these two things you will give them first and in return, you will get them. It will boast your confidence if you have both trust and respect. A simple tip here is to start valuing long-term goals and try to be honest with them by helping them without expecting any reward in return.
Mentoring your Team-members. Mentoring team members accurately is not only an interpersonal skill but a leadership trait also. When you guide someone using your knowledge it will motivate you and enhance the urge to help others which will ultimately yield surprising results. It will grow them as well as you simultaneously. It evolves your mindset and you began to think differently. Some traits of a good mentor are good communication and respect between both of them.
HOW DO IMPROVE INTERPERSONAL SKILLS?
Taking part in daily group activities. Taking part in daily activities will allow you to open up with your fellow and you will gain trust in them. It will boast your confidence and your comfort level with elevate. An introverted person should go for this to be confident.
Focus on body language. Body language matters a lot as it says only what’s inside. If you are petrified or ecstatic your body language will alter accordingly. It has a huge impact on your personality as 60% will your body language matters when you negotiate and your words have little worth.
Appreciating team members. Your team member is struggling to achieve some tasks and if he succeeds you must praise him for his achievement and motivate him to do further tasks. In this way, your relationship will improve and he gets to know you were happy with his achievement. It creates a sense of honesty between both of you.
Listen carefully. It means to listen carefully to what exactly a person is saying and process it actively in your mind before responding and at last responding properly. In this way, a person who is speaking and who is listening will take part in the conversation more inquisitively.
Master time management. Your Peace of mind has direct relations with time management. Once you will be satisfied internally it will show up in your actions and you will begin to interact more effectively with your office partners.
Attend seminars. Attending seminars is one of the easiest ways to learn a new skill. These days seminars are underrated but an effective seminar has the ability to change your perspective on life and can have drastic effects on your life.
Set goals. You can set goals for being social. Setting goals can change your life in many ways. Make sure your goals must be realistic and you have to take only small actions so they won’t affect your temperament You don’t have to force anything just do it because you want to do it.
Be kind and supportive. Kindness will always affect your life positively and it will make things easier for you. You can build strong relationships on its basis and you can add them as a part of your life. Being kind is important but the important factor is not to have any expectations in return.
CONCLUSION:
No matter what area of life you are working interpersonal skills will benefit you. Some people have God-gifted skills that they can interact with others but no matter how skilled you are there is always room for improvement. On the other hand, people who are shy and lack these skills can also master these skills from scratch. Interpersonal skill is one of those skills if mastered once, will benefit you for the rest of your life. What do you think if interpersonal skills can affect our life badly or there are always advantages to these skills?