Poor Interpersonal Skills and Steps to enhance Interpersonal Skills?
Are you frustrated because you are unable to figure out how to “connect” with your colleagues? Do you feel like you are missing something about how to “develop” effective interpersonal relationships? Are you frustrated because others are more successful than you even though you work harder? Or are you frustrated because others are more influential than you even though you think you are smarter or better trained and add more?
Yes, definitely then you are lacking with interpersonal skills. Some people say it as Poor people skills.
Great people skills are the foundation of career success, simply because they enable personal connection and interpersonal influence.
As a Corporate Trainer and Coach, I help clients improve their life by overcoming their limiting beliefs about interpersonal Skills. I can attest that most of my clients who endure poor Interpersonal Skills do so because of a lack of distinction and awareness. However, as a coach, I can unequivocally state that good people skills can be learnt. Seriously – you can learn effective interpersonal behaviours – just as you can learn any other skill!
The source of this problem
For many of us who exercise poor Interpersonal skills, they do so through no fault of their own. In a world where the demand is for ever-increasing technical specialization, there is often an under-commitment to the development of effective interpersonal skills. This drilling down into areas of technical specialization often begins at the secondary education level, as we spent more and more of our intellectual capital focusing on narrower and narrower technical skills; which leaves little time or incentive to explore the softer skill sets, including developing effective people skills.
A Contemporary Ailment - Virtual Friends Versus People Skills
One more emerging reason is that our technical scenario is not permitting us to interact with society in person.
Compounding the situation of technical specialization is the contemporary reality that technology is omnipresent in our environment. In fact, I believe that we were hooked into thinking that by virtue of having numerous “virtual friends” we must have great interpersonal skills! Nothing could be further from the truth. Technology creates superficial friends, not deep meaningful relationships, such as those that are necessary for a successful career. Millennials are more interested in virtual interaction through social media platforms, leading a lack of interpersonal skills.
How Do You Know If You Have Interpersonal Skills – What Are The 5 Symptoms?
What then are the 5 symptoms of poor people skills? If you want that promotion or simply want to grow your client and network base, then you must understand how to positively influence others. Healthy interpersonal skills are a significant aspect of interpersonal effectiveness. Recognizing 5 of the symptoms of poor people skills is the first step towards making changes:
1. Exhibiting lack of self-awareness,
2. Exhibiting lack of awareness of others,
3. Exhibiting poor interpersonal communication,
4. Exhibiting lack of awareness towards group dynamics,
5. Exhibiting lack of awareness towards distinctions among people across different generational cohorts, professional disciplines, and diverse cultures.
How Do The 5 Signs of Interpersonal Skills show Up?
Exhibiting lack of self-awareness. As an aspiring influencer of current leader within your workplace, you may exhibit lack of self-awareness if your go-to response mechanism in the face of a threat is to become defensive, or you deflect or behave in a passive-aggressive manner. Lack of self-awareness can also result in you being accused of being a bully, or that you are controlling, you micro-manage, or you nit-pick others’ work. You may also be accused of being moody or inconsistent, and you are prone to exhibiting rapid mood/behaviour changes.
Exhibiting lack of awareness of others: Typically, you don’t understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people; you don’t grasp the why of why they do what they do, or you don’t pick up on emotional cues, or feel comfortable in social situations. You are often clueless that others are angry towards you or that you have annoyed them.
Exhibiting poor interpersonal communication; Interpersonal communication involves interchanging ideas with others using various communication tools, such as words, gestures, voice tone, facial expression and body posture. This particular skill is the lifeblood of an organization because effective communication dictates operational efficiency and facilitates teamwork. Ineffective communication is often characterized by the use of certain types of “you” language – so if you typically use the following approach to communication you may have a problem;
Directives and universal statements for example are a sign of poor interpersonal communication. Directive statements either pass negative judgment or order another person around, such as “you are...,” “you should...,” “you need to...,” and “you have to…”.
Universal statements are expressions that generalize a person’s character or behaviour in a negative way. The most common types of universal statements involve the use of words such as “always,” “never,” “again,” “so,” “every time,” “such a,” and “everyone.”
Invalidation of feelings is another aspect of ineffective communication and often occurs in conjunction with poor listening skills – and occurs when we recognize emotions, positive or negative, coming out of a person, BUT either discount, belittle, minimize, ignore or negatively judge these feelings.
Exhibiting lack of awareness towards group dynamics: People often take on distinct roles and behaviours when they work in a group. "Group dynamics" describes the effects of these roles. In a group with poor group dynamics, people's behaviour disrupts work. When you exhibit a lack of awareness of the negative group dynamic you inadvertently contribute to the situation. When you are constantly surprised by the infighting or resistance from within a group, or you find yourself being pulled into stupid fights and disagreements you may be oblivious to the inner workings of your group.
Exhibiting lack of awareness towards distinctions among people across different generational cohorts, professional disciplines, and diverse cultures: Cultural competency is broader in scope than simple diversity. It includes the complex processing and understanding of values and worldviews. A culturally competent person will take into account individual cultural perspectives that inform people’s behaviours and motivations. A lack of cultural awareness in a multicultural environment can create a sense of division among workers. By exhibiting lack of awareness of cultural/generational/ or other distinctions you can fall into cliquish behaviours that make it hard to create a sense of teamwork and unity. If you find yourself in an "us" versus "them" environment you may be contributing to the division and divisive behaviours.
What You Can Do About It?
Most executives do not have the luxury of stepping aside and attending a campus-based interpersonal skills development program - so here are five coaching suggestions (activities) to improve your people skills.
1. Identify someone you work with who has great interpersonal skills and emulate their behavior.
2. Catch yourself in the act of “being personable” and journal about how it made you feel.
How others reacted or behaved in response, including third-party observers who were not the recipient of your positive gesture.
3. Identify someone you work with who has awful people skills.
Reflect upon the impact of their behaviour on the person they were interacting with as well as upon other third-party observers who were not the recipient of their behaviour.
4. Catch yourself in the act of “really awful people skills” and journal about how others reacted or behaved in response and how it made you feel.
5. Identify one single positive interpersonal behavior –
- Such as “greeting” or “saying thank you” or “asking how is your day”
- Purposefully and mindfully employ it 100 times every day for a week .
- Reflect upon how others begin to react differently to you.