Overcoming Barriers to Effective Communication

The assignment content is about the writer's personal experience with communication barriers, including the use of technical terms, differences in perception and viewpoint, and language differences. The writer reflects on how these barriers impacted their life and relationships, and shares strategies they used to overcome them, such as learning new vocabulary, promoting high interaction, and taking language classes.

Running Head: Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication
reflective essay: Interpersonal communication
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Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 1
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Role of communication in professional and personal relationships................................................1
Listening and Talking styles or their impact on others....................................................................2
Barriers to Communication..............................................................................................................3
How barriers enhance communication challenges..........................................................................4
Suggestions to overcome barriers to improve communication........................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 2
Introduction
This paper is a reflective report prepared on the basis of my communication skills and
experiences. This paper is covered different aspects which are related to my life in a high
context. The first thing discussed in the paper is the role of communication in professional and
personal relationships. Here, I have identified the role of communication on the basis of personal
communication skills and experience. On the other hand, another aspect covered in the paper is
the use of listening and talking styles or their influence on behavior or mindset of others. Apart
from this, the paper also contains communication barriers and suggestions to overcome them. All
this information is related to my personal experience and communication skills. Moreover, the
secondary sources are also used to collect relevant information.
Role of communication in professional and personal relationships
On the basis of my personal experience and communication skills, I can say that the
communication plays an important role in both the professional as well as personal relationships.
In my professional life, I need communication skills to communicate with subordinates and other
team members. In the absence of communication skill, I will become a failure in measuring the
responses and demand of team members as well as team management. Therefore, I can say that
the effective communication serves as a base for me to keep viewpoint in front of team members.
Moreover, it is the communication that helps me to transfer the necessary information from one
person to another (Braithwaite, 2014). So, it can say that my professional life is null without the
communication. That's why I can say that communication is the blood of the professional life. I
can't predict my personal life in the absence of effective communication.

Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 3
On the other hand, I can also say that the communication is important for personal relationships
too. With the help of communication, I establish my relationships with family, community
members as well as friends. Moreover, it is the communication that permits me to keep
interaction with my kid as well as husband. The communication allows not only the healthy
personal relationship but also the smooth family environment. Therefore, it is described that
communication plays an effective role in personal relationship development as well. For
example, there was a case in my life regarding communication where other colleagues and I do
not communicate with each other. Due to the lack of communication, the personal gap was
growing rapidly (Walther, 2017). This creates a lot of misunderstandings between us. But when
we start communicating with each other, we able to clear our issues and maintain a healthy
relationship. Therefore, it can be said that communication is a key point of professional and
personal relationships.
Listening and Talking styles or their impact on others
Listening and Talking are two important skills that should have in each individual. I believe that
the listening and talking styles has a big influence on job effectiveness of an individual. My
listening skills are based on critical listening. It is because I like to listen to the viewpoint of
others and comment wherever necessary. On the basis of critical listening, I am identifying key
points and arguments included in other opinions. It is my critical thinking that allows me to give
a proper contribution towards the discussion with others. With the help of such behavior, I learn
significant information from the viewpoint of the others. Moreover, the critical listening skills
also enforce me to correct the misunderstanding and mistake of others and guide them on the
right track. For example, at my workplace, the senior always organizes a panel discussion to
make a significant decision. On the basis of my critical listening style, I give significant

Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 4
contribution towards management efforts. Moreover, the talking style is mussitation in nature. It
is because I always keep my viewpoint in front of others in an indoor voice. It is the indoor voice
that helps me to gain the confidence of others. My talking style is very efficient. It is because I
have the capability to teach my subordinates in a right direction and they can understand my
language and words effectively (Wood, 2015). It is my mussitation talking style that makes me
comfortable with each internal or external environment. Therefore, it can be said that my talking
and listening style makes me different from others.
Moreover, I can also say that talking and listening styles influence others on both the positive
and negative manner. My listening style shows the speaker how active I am towards his or her
message. Moreover, my talking style represents how much confidence I have to keep my
viewpoint in front of the others. Moreover, it is the talking and listening style of an individual
that change the perception of another individual about their behavior (Walther, 2017). For
example, during the initial time period of my job, I used local language instead of professional.
This represents that I was from a local community. Hence, it is defined that listening and
communication are two important aspects of a well-organized communication.
Barriers to Communication
I faced a lot of communication barriers in my lifetime. The first and foremost communication
barrier that I faced is the use of technical and unfamiliar terms by colleagues. Due to the use of
technical terms, I become failure in communicating with them effectively. For example, once
there was a debate on washing machine working. In that case, I did not give any single comment
on the words of others. It is because I was not familiar with the words they were using. Another
communication problem that I faced is differences in perception and viewpoint. It can be

Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 5
concluded that each individual has different viewpoints because they belong from several regions
and locality (Wood, 2015). In that situation, it becomes difficult for me to interpret the things
according to their behavior. The last and foremost communication issue that I faced is language
differences. All these communication barriers enhance the challenges of my life on a continuous
basis.
How barriers enhance communication challenges
As per my personal experience, I can say that the above-mentioned communication barriers have
enough potential to raise communication challenges. Due to the lack of familiarity with technical
terms, I become failure in understanding the viewpoint of others. This becomes the reason for the
unhealthy relationship with colleagues. On the other hand, another issue of perception and
viewpoint difference also has sufficient capacity to raise communication challenge (Braithwaite,
2014). The differences in viewpoint and perception become the sole reason for the gap between
different members at the workplace. Moreover, this also influences the level of personal
interaction with other members. For example, while working as a manager in IT Company, I
noticed that the behavior and perception of some subordinates are different than me. This
different perception creates a communication gap between us, and we don't like to interact with
each other. Therefore, I can say that the communication barriers become the reason of
interrupted communication level in personal as well as professional life.
Suggestions to overcome barriers to improve communication
In order to overcome the above-mentioned challenges, I performed a lot of changes in my
behavior as well as personality. At first, I started readings to improve my vocabulary. With the
help of reading different article and magazines, I able to learn new technical terms and use it in

Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 6
my day to day life. On the other hand, I promote the use of high interaction with subordinates as
well as colleagues. The interaction on large basis allows me to understand the viewpoint of
others and talk them in the same method as they require (Berger, 2014). Moreover, I also join the
language classes to learn British as well as other potential languages that were highly utilized at
my workplace. All these initiatives help me to overcome communication barriers that I faced
during my work life.
Conclusion
On the basis of above-mentioned reflection, I can say that my communication skills serve as a
key strength of behavior. The use of both effective learning and talking skills enforce me to
develop healthy relations with subordinates and help them to overcome their personal as well as
professional issues. Moreover, it can also say that communication barriers serve as a key
challenge in my career growth. Therefore, the improvement of these barriers becomes a necessity
for me to go ahead and get growth opportunities. With the help of above-mentioned overcome
initiatives, I significantly removed my communication barriers and established healthy
relationship with subordinates as well as other family members.

Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication 7
References
Berger, J. (2014). Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for
future research. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(4), 586-607.
Braithwaite, D. O., & Schrodt, P. (Eds.). (2014). Engaging theories in interpersonal
communication: Multiple perspectives. Sage Publications. Knapp, M. L., Vangelisti, A. L., &
Caughlin, J. P. (2014). Interpersonal communication and human relationships. Pearson Higher
Ed.
Wood, J. T. (2015). Interpersonal communication: Everyday encounters. Nelson Education.
Walther, J. B., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2017). Merging mass and interpersonal communication via
interactive communication technology: A symposium. Human Communication Research, 43(4),
415-423.