Interpersonal Communication Skills Essay 2022

Student Name
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S)
INTERPERSONAL
COMMUNICATION SKILLS

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Essay
Effective interpersonal communication skills are one of the most significant tools that
help students as well as professionals achieve desired objectives. In every step of our life,
whether personal or professional, we need to communicate either verbally or non-verbally to
convey our thoughts, feelings, ideas and emotions. We as individuals or as a team cannot
survive without effective communication skills. “Every youth in this world wants to become
successful in his or her profession” (Mahajan, 2015, p. 36). This is the reason most of the
academicians and business scholars posits that communication skills play a pivotal role in
professional and personal life. But then, when we communicate, it is apparent that
communication may breakdown due to communication barriers which can be attributed to
receiver or sender making the entire process challenging for us (Darnish & Ramu, 2018,
p. 66). Therefore, choosing an appropriate communication channel and gaining interpersonal
communication skills is suggested in the literature.
Communication has been defined differently by intellectuals working in diverse fields
such as sociology, management and psychology. Most commonly, authors define
communication as use of sign language, symbols and words to exchange facts, emotions, idea
and information between two or more people (Kelvin-Iloafu, 2016, p. 94). Earlier, my idea
about communication skills was limited to face to face interaction techniques only but now I
am aware that good communication skills involve a combination of skill set like attentive
listening, confidence, non-verbal communication etc. It is expected that my future workplace
will believe that I am equipped with technical knowledge along with required soft skills and
interpersonal communication skills. Most of the MNCs today look for professional who carry
strong communication skills so that global market needs and business challenges can be met

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competently (Mahajan, 2015). It can be said that gaining sufficient knowledge about field
related matter or techniques is a must, but they might prove insufficient if we are unable to
express them or convey properly.
Communication skills are important not only for professional life but in a personal
relationship too. Stress arises in our relationships if we face conflicting preferences, goals,
and motives between us and our partners, family members or colleagues. Some common
source of conflicts involves financial stress, family and domestic responsibility, bad habits,
etc. (Overall & McNulty, 2017, p. 1). One experience that I would like to share here is
concerning communication issues faced by me while working in a group. When I was
assigned to work in a team for my previous school's workshop, most of my ideas and feelings
went unnoticed since I could not convey them in front of my class. Since childhood, I am not
an introvert by nature but I find it very difficult to speak in front of larger gatherings or team.
While going through the articles, I found one paper written by Mohanty & Mohanty (2018)
where the author pointed out some very insightful factors that contribute to building effective
teamwork. Firstly, the author opined that there is a very crucial link between social
interaction level and communication skills in teamwork. Secondly, to work in teams, we must
form a heterogeneous team composition and cohesion between us so that every team
member's viewpoints are incorporated within the team (p. 4).
Listening and speaking skills are two important pillars to effective communication
process. Particularly, good listening skills are documented by many scholars since input
covers a larger part in communication practice and act as an important agent in the learning
process. Moreover, output or speaking is highly depended on listening which makes crucial
for us to learn listening skills too ( Yavuz & Celik, 2017, p. 9). Active listeners are those
who look into other people for any verbal or non-verbal cues to comprehend vocal indicators
revealing key messages. I can remember how one of my previous workplace colleagues