reflection essay about interpersonal skills

• Essay on Interpersonal Communication Skills

Introduction

Communication has become an integral part of life and must-have skills. We need interpersonal skills not only to interact with each other in the context of the workplace, families, relationships, and nations, but also to transmit information and knowledge. According to Koprowska, (2020), interpersonal communication is defined as exchanging information, knowledge, feelings, and thoughts exchanged between two or more people. Individual use various of communication methods; words, body language, tonal variation, facial expressions, and gestures. Using effective interpersonal communication by an individual helps in personal growth, promotes a close relationship, promotes wellness, reduces stress, and improves the quality of life (Koprowska,2020). This essay focusses on showing the importance of effective interpersonal communication skills and emerging skills learned over the trimester incorporating feedback received from peers.

Paraphrasing and Summarizing

Repeating back in my words what the client said helped to bring the client awareness to his/her cognitions, emotions, and behaviors awareness. It encouraged the client to go deeper into the conversations and demonstrate empathy. According to Koprowska, (2020), paraphrasing and summarizing are more to repeating the words and interpreting the client’s emotions and behavior.

Reflection of content and feeling

Reflection of content involved reflecting back the content of what the client has said by picking the most important content information, but not repeating what the client has said, while the reflection of feeling is reflecting on the perceived emotional affect of the client such as tears or change in the tone (Destler, 2017). Combined reflection of content and feeling to bring feelings, cognitions, and behaviors awareness. Using appropriate words to reflect the client’s content and feelings was crucial to the success of the counseling sessions, for instance, ‘You are sad because of bullying at the work and the decision to leave your family and friends, if you accept the new job offer.’

Active listening skills

Counselors used active listening skills to help the client recognize that the counselor is listening attentively, interested in what the client is talking about, understanding and encouraging the client to continue talking (Geldard, & Foo,2019). Active listening skills include: nonverbal responses such as nodding, maintaining eye contact; using encouragers to continue talking such as ‘yes’, ‘really’, ‘ I understand’ which shows the attitude and approval, or disapproval; matching the language to the appropriate age group such as the use of vocabulary that the client will understand.

Use of questions

Designed the suitable questions at an appropriate time to meet different clients’ need. When working with the adults, one should be careful not to overuse questions to avoid turning the counselling into interrogation but a conversation (Destler,2017). Similarly, to young people to maintain interests in the session. There are two types of questions: an open question seeks a descriptive answer while a closed question demands a yes or no answer. Both types of questions encourage a conversation and make the client to self-disclosure. Moreover, the type of questions asked by the counselor makes him/her approachable and builds trust.

Importance of Effective Interpersonal communication skills

Personal development

Human beings are complex social beings. We develop social skills through continuously interacting with others. Social skills are primarily affected by predisposing factors; thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are learned and shaped by our social groups (Geldard, & Foo,2019). In my role play and course materials provided helped me to develop practical communication skills; listening skills: how to encourage others to talk about themselves without interpreting, experiences and reflection of feelings: early experience affects an individual’s perceptions, and perceptions do not change easily (Biglu, et all.,2017). One can only help another by using effective interpersonal skills to ensure the intended information, the other person understands thoughts. Likewise, interaction requires one to understand the other person’s point of view, as well as your own’s view to give advice by making other person feels that their opinions, thoughts and ideas matter.

The development of effective interpersonal skills has helped me express myself in the most convincingly way; strengthening the bond among my friends; to speak clearly to make people understand what I intend to communicate; improve body language (Biglu, et all.,2017). Apparently, shaping my personality has boosted my self-esteem and self-confidence and in realizing my purpose of helping people in daily challenges.

Problem solving

Different problems require different problem-solving skills. For instance, solving a problem requires understanding the problem and effective verbal, listening, and persuasion skills. Excellent interpersonal communications ensure smooth discussion among the team, weighing the cons and pros of different alternatives and choose the best alternative (Khademian, & Tehrani, 2017).

According to American Psychological Association, 40% of clients do not trust their counselors in the counseling industry. They do not share all the information for fear of confidentiality breaches. Effective communication help to build the trust, relationship in the workplace by assuring, and explaining the obligation of confidentiality in the law.

Personal relationships

Building healthy relationships in the personal and workplace requires effective interpersonal communication skills, coordination to work as a team. Creating and maintaining personal relationships requires respecting other person’s point of view; thoughts, knowledge, ideas, paying attention to their feelings by observing how they communicate, this builds trust among the friends (Khademian, & Tehrani, 2017).

Effective management and leadership

An effective leader should possess skills to foster an interpersonal relationship, trust and communicate clearly. Poor communication irritates and confuses workers while performing their duties, waste time while revisiting issues already shared (Hardjati, & Febrianita,2019). Managers are in charge, should ensure cooperation at executing tasks and responsible for his/her team. Therefore, the need to build trust and transparency by effectively communicating to the employees and creating a culture of positivity.

Recognizing good work

Good interpersonal communication skills are essential for personal coaching in the workplace. Helping each other perform their duties successfully, identifying the good work and encouraging each other to perform their level best as well as working on weaknesses (Biglu, et all.,2017). Asking questions instead of giving direct orders at the workplace requires effective interpersonal communication skills.

Must-Have Interpersonal Communication skills

Employees are recognizing the importance of micro-soft skills and nonverbal communication skills. The following are soft skills and nonverbal communication skills I have gained or polished include; communication courtesy, flexibility, integrity, interpersonal skills, attitude, professionalism, responsibility, teamwork, and work ethic (Biglu, et all.,2017).

Importance of observing non-verbal clues

Nonverbal clues; facial expressions, gestures, body movement and postures, eye contact, tone variation are powerful interpersonal communication tools. Observing the nonverbal clues helped me know when to start a conversation by establishing a rapport; someone needed a break, was confused hence need more explanation, want to contribute, and know whether trust exists in the discussion (Anggeraini, & Farozin,2019).

Ineffective interpersonal communication

Ineffective interpersonal create barriers and prevent the sharing and understanding of message communicated. In cases where people are restricted to sharing by cultural taboos of non-talking issues, mainly caused by lack of trust, frustration, and problems neglected (Khademian, & Tehrani, 2017). To show respect for their culture and talk openly about how they have restricted people from talking, and encourage cooperation.

Poor conflict management and problem-solving skills result in finger-pointing, blaming each other for not achieving the set objectives, and misdirected anger to other team members. According to Koprowska, (2020), can solve this by learning how to bring people’s mistakes indirectly, not pointing fingers. The manager can talk about his/her mistakes before criticizing the other person, and learning to disagree with the other person’s perceptions, and remaining calm.

It is satisfactory to say that effective interpersonal communication skills are essential towards achieving goals in an organization and personal development. Employees exhibit poor performance at the workplace as a result of ineffective interpersonal communication from the manager. The directives from the leaders ensure the proper performance of duties at the workplace. Effective interpersonal communication skills enhance personal and professional growth, builds trust and positivity, recognizes good work and effective management. This enhances the reliability and accuracy of information thus yielding an efficient working environment.

Destler, D. (2017). The Superskills Model: A Supervisory Microskill Competency Training Model.  Professional Counselor ,  7 (3), 272-284.

Geldard, K., Geldard, D., & Foo, R. Y. (2019).  Counselling adolescents: The proactive approach for young people . Sage.

Hardjati, S., & Febrianita, R. (2019). The power of interpersonal communication skill in enhancing service provision.  Journal of Social Science Research ,  14 , 3192-3199.

Khademian, Z., & Tehrani Neshat, B. (2017). The relationship between interpersonal communication skills and nursing students’ attitudes toward teamwork.  Sadra Medical Journal ,  5 (2), 99-110.

Biglu, M. H., Nateq, F., Ghojazadeh, M., & Asgharzadeh, A. (2017). Communication skills of physicians and patients’ satisfaction.  Materia socio-medica ,  29 (3), 192.

Anggeraini, D., & Farozin, M. (2019). Interpersonal communication skills and self confidence of secondary school students: findings and interventions.  KnE Social Sciences , 140-145.

Koprowska, J. (2020).  Communication and interpersonal skills in social work . Sage.

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Interpersonal Communication Essay – Its Importance and Necessary Skills

In this interpersonal communication essay, you will learn about topics such as communication in daily reality, humans as social animals, and how relationships can lead to violence. Communication in a human being starts before birth and takes place throughout one’s life. It is important to note that communication does not necessarily need to be verbal but can also include signs and other ways through which messages can be sent and received conveniently.

In this regard, human communication entails making sense in the world and sharing the information through both verbal and non-verbal communication. Arguably, interpersonal communication is a very vital skill that people must use in daily life including in career development and achieving their goals. As a matter of fact, interpersonal communication involves sending and receiving messages with both negative and positive results and is affected by different factors.

Interpersonal communication is very crucial in developing relationships in society because relationships are all about how people communicate with one another. Words that are used in communication need to be understood for any meaningful effect to take place. It is important to note that interpersonal communication is helpful in enhancing the understanding of the words that people use within conversations thus avoiding misunderstanding and misjudgments.

However, it is interpersonal perception present in every person that shapes interpersonal communication. Research shows that interpersonal perception often leads to the formation of prejudices on what people are like. As a result, different meanings are given to people’s action while at the same time impressions about people’s personalities are formed.

People who are aware and skilled in communication stand a better chance when it comes to understanding and perceiving others with objectivity. Skills of communication enable one to avoid forming impressions about people with certain characteristics which might lead to subjectivity in judgment. Consequently, these people usually have fair inferences about people’s motives, personalities, and other human qualities. Therefore, the study of interpersonal communication enhances the skills of people regarding how they conduct their relationships.

It is important to note that communication is highly volatile and is influenced by several different factors including culture, gender, and ethnicity. Culture has been defined as a collection of values, traits, norms, and attitudes that define the expected code of conduct in a community. Culture is not universal and varies from one community to another.

It is quite normal for people to evaluate others according to life experiences they have with the person’s cultural group. Consequently, culture highly influences how we process and interpret information depending on the cultural background of our communication partner. Moreover, culture and sometimes gender determines the meaning that is given to different words.

On the same note, friendship also affects interpersonal communication. Defined as a type of relationship where one has a choice on whether and when to quit, friendship provides support to people both emotionally and psychologically. It is important to note that friendship changes as one develops through childhood to maturity. As friendship changes, the way people send and receive messages with one another also change. Friends sometimes use words differently from their conventional use. Consequently, interpersonal communication between friends has sometimes coded thus interpretations as well as inferences are different.

Family relationship is also another aspect that highly affects interpersonal communication. Family is the basic unit in a society where people get their first orientation on how people should conduct themselves in society. It is the family that orients people to conversations and conformity. The family has been categorized into four categories: protective, consensual, pluralistic and laissez-faire. The different types of families educate people differently on how to listen to others, conflict management as well as matters regarding relationships. Therefore, interpersonal communication highly differs along with the various types of family.

Communication is not only about speaking or rather sending the message only, but also includes that act of receiving and acting on the message. Therefore, listening is very crucial in the interpersonal communication process. Firstly, listening takes the largest portion of any communication, when people are either processing the information being received or just giving others time to pass their message. It has been noted that listening style of people defines their preferred way of making sense of unspoken words.

Therefore, listening styles give a hint on how people are likely to react to the message being passed. In order to have a successful communication mission, it is important for one to understand the listening style of his or her communication partner. Notably, there are four distinct listening styles that are mostly used by people. These are people-oriented, time-oriented, action-oriented and content-oriented. Wrong decision on the type of listening used by one’s communication partner usually leads to a breakdown in communication.

Having stated how important interpersonal communication is and outlined some of the factors that affect it, it is important to note that communication has negative effects too. Words are known to affect emotions and even inflict pain depending on how they are used and the context in which they are used. It is not peculiar for people to use one lie or another in their conversations.

Deception can take two forms that are; omission where some information is left out either intentionally or by mistake and commission where false information is passed to receivers. Instead of helping in developing relationships, deception destroys relationships by eliminating the trust that is critical in every relationship.

On the same note, communication also hurts especially when negative comments are given. People get depressed when others comment negatively about their physical appearance, personality or their ability in different areas. In this regard, communication fails to perform its expected functions of enhancing relationships. These kinds of comments have been known to mete out pain on people. Consequently, people become apprehensive of those who like commenting negatively resulting in stereotyping. The result is misinterpretation and sometimes misconceptions when communicating or decoding others’ verbal and non-verbal messages.

On the other hand, Interpersonal relationship can also be bad. The negative outcomes of interpersonal relationship include jealousy where one person is uncomfortable when the other relationships with different people. In addition, interpersonal relationships have also been known to lead to obsessive relation intrusion. The behavior makes people excessively concerned with other people’s affairs to the extent that they intrude into their private lives. Relationship violence also results when interpersonal relationships fail to work on society’s expectation.

The violence varies from just minor emotional stresses to physical violence leading to serious injuries. Marriages are good examples of how interpersonal relationships can lead to violence. It should be noted that relationships fail because of faults, unwilling to compromise and the feeling of being constrained. However, the failure of interpersonal communication plays a very crucial role in determining the cohesiveness of relationships. Therefore, failure in interpersonal communication often leads to failure of interpersonal relationships.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 31). Interpersonal Communication Essay – Its Importance and Necessary Skills. https://ivypanda.com/essays/interpersonal-communication-importance/

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Reflection on Interpersonal Communication

Added on   2020-04-07

   Added on  2020-04-07

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