Building A Great Career Through Healthy Interpersonal Relationships

The value of great interpersonal skills cannot be overemphasized in building a successful career, and even a good life. Interpersonal skills are often referred to as People Skills, Soft Skills, Life Skills, Social Skills or Employability Skills. Whichever one you choose to go by, these skills are essential in building and sustaining a great career. Great interpersonal skills are needed in our daily interactions with people.

Communication Skills 

One of the most important interpersonal skills is good communication. Regardless of the industry in which you work, whether it is the Financial, Customer service, Construction, or any other industry and even in our day to day activities, there will always be need to interact with people. To succeed at this, you will need to be able to communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and non-verbally. Effective communication is crucial for mutual understanding among people. One has to ensure views, feelings, and needs are passed across to others, clearly and concisely so that they can be responded to with maximum support. Poor or inadequate communication leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretations which will overtime affect the relationship. There’s need to avoid ambiguity, wrong verbal or non-verbal communication while communicating with people.

The role of non-verbal communication cannot be overemphasized in communication. It is generally believed that the non-verbal message we send to people while communicating with them goes a long way in the interpretation that will be given to such message especially in face to face or telephone conversations. Examples include body language, facial expressions, posture, speaking rate, and gesture.  Another skill that may sometimes be required under communication skills is Public Speaking.

Listening Skills

A lot of misunderstandings and conflict in many relationships and in the work place occur as result of lack of good listening skills. It is one thing to hear what a speaker says and quite another to actually listen to understand what the speaker is saying. Due to our busy schedules, we often don’t dedicate time to listen to what people communicate to us. Listening entails observing the correlation between a speaker’s verbal message and the non-verbal message; listening in between the lines, beyond the direct meaning of what is been said and what the speaker implies. When we’ve learnt to imbibe good listening skills, it makes it easier to know how to respond to people.

Self-Love

“Self-love, self-respect, self-worth: There’s a reason they all start with ‘self.’ You can’t find them in anyone else.” ~Unknown.

Self-love means accepting yourself as you are in this very moment for everything that you are. It means accepting your emotions for what they are and putting your physical, emotional and mental well-being first. We really can’t expect to have a smooth relationship with others until we’ve learnt to be in a cordial relationship with ourselves. It would be easier to relate with people correctly when we’ve first learnt to understand ourselves. This would make it easier to understand other people and also present ourselves in an acceptable view to others. If you’re in a place today where you don’t love yourself, it’s often hard to make the move and become someone who does. Just like when you’re building muscles, self-love takes consistent practice.

Instead of loving yourself, there’s need to focus on being someone who loves. Be loveable. That is, allow love to flow through you as often as possible. Focus on what you love about yourself, and the people you meet. Focus on the things you appreciate while sitting in a meeting, or while speaking with someone. Simply, adjust your body and mind to positive emotions by finding as many things to love and appreciate as possible. For many people, self-love is another way to say self-care. To practice self-care, we often need to go back to the basics and learn to:

• Listen to our bodies
• Take breaks from work and move/stretch.
• Put the phone down and connect to yourself or others, or do something creative.
• And sometimes, change that job or environment!

Self-love is good, but we must be careful not to allow it become selfishness. While practicing self-love, we should also learn to empathize with people.

Emotional Intelligence/Emotional Quotient

Building high emotional intelligence is another crucial step in developing great interpersonal relationships. Emotional intelligence can be closely likened to Discretion. It is the ability to perceive, use, evaluate, and manage your own emotions and those of the people around you, in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. It is a measure of how well we understand our emotions and the emotions of others. It is often said that IQ will take you to a place, a people, a job, but EQ will sustain you, and even lift you higher. Emotional Intelligence generally consists of four attributes:

•  Self-Awareness: Emotionally intelligent people recognize their own emotions and how they affect their thoughts and behavior. They understand their strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence. They are not only good at thinking about how other people might feel but they are also adept at understanding their own feelings. Self-awareness allows people to consider and understand the many different factors that contribute to their emotions.
•  Self-Management: Since they are self-aware, they then put this understanding to good use. They are able to control impulsive feelings, behaviors, and thoughts, and also manage their emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

• Social Awareness: Emotional intelligence is typically associated with empathy because it involves an individual connecting their personal experiences with those of others. A large part of emotional intelligence is being able to think about the feelings of other people and also empathize with how they are feeling. People who have strong emotional intelligence are able to consider the perspectives, experiences, and emotions of other people and use this information to explain why people behave the way that they do. They understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics among the people they relate with. This often involves considering how you would respond if you were in the same situation.
• Relationship Management: Relationship management is using the awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully. It is the ability to recognize different communication styles in others and address them in their preferred style. Relationship management refers to being able to:

o   Know how to develop and maintain good relationships

o   Build connections with others who may be quite different from you

o   Notice the mood in a group and adapt appropriately

o   Communicate clearly

o   Work well in a team 

o   Motivate, inspire and influence others

o    Manage conflict effectively

Through these skills there’s guarantee for living a better life, building more healthy relationships and forging ahead in your career. See you at the top!