Enhancing Communication Skills: A Study for SWK102 Professional Growth

This essay explores the critical role of communication skills in professional development, focusing on five key areas: listening, verbal, nonverbal, emotional awareness, and written communication. It emphasizes the importance of effective communication in both business and interpersonal relationships, highlighting how these skills shape interactions and contribute to personal and professional success. The essay discusses the communication model, highlighting the roles of the sender and receiver, and examines various forms of communication, including verbal and nonverbal cues, written communication, listening skills, and emotional awareness. It further analyzes the barriers to effective communication, such as semantic noise and emotional interference, and explores strategies for overcoming these challenges. The essay also incorporates feedback from personal interactions to identify strengths and areas for development in communication skills, ultimately emphasizing the need for continuous improvement in communication to achieve personal and professional goals. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools for students.

Running head: COMMUNICATION SKILLS
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Introduction
Humans are considered to be pack animals. The level of attainment as species or as
individuals depends greatly on the competence level to efficiently communicate, both verbally as
well as nonverbally (Beebe et al., 2017). Communication both in verbal and nonverbal forms
exhibits a propensity to shape the interactions between humans in both business and
interpersonal relations along with financial and personal achievements along with physical and
psychological welfare. Effectively comprehending the various facets of verbal and nonverbal
communication along with the vital role they serve in the interaction process with others is
identified as the initial step to enhance positive and effective communication and further nurture
relationships (Bodie et al., 2015). The following is essay evaluate the five forms of
communication skills such as listening verbal, non verbal, emotional awareness and written and
further analyse their importance in the process of communication.
Discussion
Communication is regarded as a very elementary and indispensable process for human
beings. However when an enterprise intends to communicate with its customer base then the
communication emerges as another form. Feng, Li & Li, (2016) drew similarity to this idea there
is communication that is involved between teams as well. Communication is identified as the act
of certain information or ideas through speech, visuals, documentation or any other similar
method. The communication model comprises a sender whose role is to send the information and
the recipient who typically receives the message. Thompson, (2011) stated that in between this
procedure the speech, opinions or ideas require to be uncomplicated distinct enough in order to
decode and comprehend by the receiver. On the other hand if the ideas or opinion signified in a
highly multifaceted manner process of decoding is improper and the receiver fails to comprehend

2COMMUNICATION SKILLS
the ideas effectively. On the basis of types of senders and recipients involved there can be
identified various forms of communication such as verbal, nonverbal, written, listening as well as
emotional awareness (Feng, Li & Li, 2016).
Verbal communication in simpler terms known as oral communication tends to arise
between people whereby the primary objective is to guarantee that people can easily comprehend
what is being conveyed. as verbal communication is recognised as a crucial aspect it is perceived
to be a fundamental factor for an individual who needs to possess a well established verbal
communication ability to handle people or groups with whom he or she is interacting and needs
to be competent enough to convince them to achieve certain goals (Harms, 2015). Leaders need
to develop constructive communication ability to establish speech as well as verbal
communication process and needs to be precise in order to circumvent any form of intricacies or
challenges for being misunderstood and serve a major role in encouraging or consoling
subordinates (Lowry, Wilson & Haig, 2014). Leaders like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi
attained substantial level of eminence for being immensely competence in communicating
verbally with their followers. Burgoon, Guerrero & Floyd, (2016) stated that Mahatma Gandhi
believed that true form of happiness and joy develops when an individual is able to perceive,
articulate and act in utmost harmonization. However it is important to note that verbal
communication has its coexistence alongside nonverbal communication which has the affinity to
impact perceptions and exchanges of information of individuals in social but in most significant
way (Feng, Li & Li, 2016). These types of communication skills primarily incorporate body
language such as gestures, eye contact, body posture or facial expressions. Individuals can
reinforce, negate, reserve, harmonize, underline or contradict the verbal communication skills
with non verbal cues such as vocal inflection or body gestures. Furthermore diverse forms of

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written communication can be identified as both formal and informal whereby the benefit of
written communication relies on the capability that it acts like the final word once the decision
has been taken (Leydesdorff & Ivanova, 2014). However on the other hand issues with written
communication are primarily with its extensive formality, a type of political issues when such
communication is documented in newspapers in order to create controversies.
At this juncture the role of emotional awareness must be taken into consideration that is
regarded as one of the key components of effective communication. As feelings and emotions
serve a critical role in the process of communication the ability to comprehend feelings will
facilitate individuals while communicating with other people (Lowry, Wilson & Haig, 2014).
Thus greater degree of emotional awareness helps individuals to communicate in an effective
manner and further distinguish the emotions of other people and the way they have developed
the sense of feeling will provide the process of interaction (Williamson et al., 2016). However
obtaining feedback and suggestions from mentors in workshops dealing with interpersonal
communication skill development typically consider sense of empathy as one of the core
elements to comprehend and associate to the feelings of others and further recognise strategies to
advance connecting oneself to those feelings. Furthermore recognising areas of
miscommunication on misconstruction when people engage in the identical conversation fails to
posit themselves on the same track. Forms of misunderstanding, uncertainty or confusion can
occur anywhere and in between any conversation however emotion awareness essentially enable
to understand these areas of intricacies and further invites approaches to mitigate such forms of
misunderstandings which are often created by confusing emotions (Wood, 2015). However
communication is typically related to the way communicators listen to each other while
interacting.

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“Are you listening to me?” is a question which is typically asked because the speaker
assumes that the listener is not being able or does not want to pay attention to the information
which is being provided (Liu, 2015). Though hearing and listening are used as synonyms the two
terms are vastly separated from each other whereby hearing is considered to be instinctive or
uncontrollable while listening requires utmost attention and focus. Thus listening skills must be
taken into consideration as it enables individuals to develop higher level of intelligence and
perceptions and incline towards stylistic factors related to the way people establish negotiations
or confrontations and present information (Williamson et al., 2016). As a result when
comprehensive listening ability facilities individuals to analyse the constructive and
unconstructive areas of other speeches it further helps the individual to transform his own speech
in the process. Thus leaders like Steve Jobs considered being prominent public speaker as
exhibited significant attention to the messages and information which have been articulated in
the process of communication (Leydesdorff & Ivanova, 2014). However listening skills can be
hindered by several forms of barriers such as ‘semantic noise’ which typically occurs when a
receiver encounters certain form of intricacy over the meaning of the speaker's word choice. This
form of career develop when the listener attempts to comprehend a specific word or sentence
where as the speaker continues to deliver the message (Feng, Li & Li, 2016). Burgoon, Guerrero
& Floyd, (2016) note a classic example of semantic noise that is euphemism which is regarded as
a diplomatic language used for delivery of unconstructive or unpleasant messages. For example
if an individual exhibits utmost flexibility with any form of facts that the speaker implies that the
person might have the propensity to provide unconstructive messages.
At this juncture it is important to note that the ability to attain the understanding of
natural language primarily distinguishes humans from other animals and is typically internalized

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during the first decade of life that is recognised as a critical stage for language acquisition (Feng,
Li & Li, 2016).
Krashen and the Monitor Model compiled various theoretical understanding related to
language which in recent times received substantial recognition and prominence and have been
used to signify learning as a second language (Liu, 2015). This monitor model has constituted
certain essential ideas which signify that acquiring a specific language intuitive to a great extent
as it emerges from both natural as well as informal conversations. Furthermore learning a
specific language is highly conscious activity and tends to depend on modification that is more
formal (van Vlack, 2016). However the fundamental purpose gained from this theory
revealed that obtaining and developing awareness of a specific language or divergent but may
have similar factors whereby fault correction can act as a primary determinant for both
acquisition as well as learning of the language. Ondondo, (2015)observed that language
acquisition tends to occur with understandable and logical input that is hearing or reading
phrases or sentences which are positioned within the current language techniques developed by
individuals. The monitor model further corrects the performance of language and pressures
individual to communicate in appropriate manner and simply convey connotations (Jureddi &
Brahmaiah, 2016). However this theory further proposes that individuals should both strive to
enhance their second language abilities and imports and a certain that they receive accurate error
correction in appropriate forms (Williamson et al., 2016). There can be identified certain
methods to manage word barriers by having uniqueness in perceptions of an individual to
systematic communication in thought in order to achieve adequately received unappreciated
manner (Ondondo, 2015). Furthermore speakers while establishing any communication base
must maintain certain degree of consistency about the information that is being conveyed.

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Conclusion
In addition to this it is essentially important for both speakers and receivers to use
appropriate gestures and expressions and avoid exhibiting extensive level of emotions as receiver
might tend to misinterpret the information. To conclude it can be stated that a communication is
considered as a social endeavour to provide and receive what individuals expect from others.
Individuals can communicate in several ways and through several communication techniques
however the level of efficacy and productivity can only be insured if the provided information is
been conveyed in an accurate manner and the receiver is able to comprehend and interpret
similar connotations and conjectures.

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