Omar Bennett
Effective communication is a key skill for any professional, and communicating with diplomacy, tact, and credibility can positively impact your professional image and relationships. Diplomacy and tact are essential for building cooperation, respect, and positive outcomes. However, these skills do not always come naturally to everyone and can be influenced by emotions and conflicts. To become a skilled communicator, you need to develop awareness, train yourself, and learn proven techniques to handle various situations. Courses and workshops are available to help professionals improve their communication skills, build confidence, and advance their careers. These programs teach conflict resolution, emotional management, and adapting communication styles to different situations and individuals.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Professionalism | Consistently communicate professionally, even in difficult circumstances |
| Self-awareness | Understand your personal communication style and the impact of stress on it |
| Flexibility | Learn to flex your style to communicate more effectively with others |
| Emotional intelligence | Manage your emotions and communicate without offending or creating conflict |
| Conflict resolution | De-escalate situations and promote honest, respectful communication to resolve issues |
| Active listening | Strengthen your communication effectiveness with active listening and questioning skills |
| Confidence | Present yourself as strong but not intimidating |
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What You'll Learn
Understanding your personal communication style
Communication is a skill that can be developed and improved upon with awareness, training, and practice. It is important to recognize that communicating with diplomacy, tact, and credibility does not always come naturally to everyone. Even those who possess these skills can be derailed by emotions and conflicts.
To understand your personal communication style, it is beneficial to participate in workshops, courses, and seminars that provide useful methods, exercises, and activities to improve your communication skills. For example, the Dale Carnegie Course teaches participants to gain dexterity and grace in dealing with new or trying situations. You will learn to recognize how you come across to others, manage your emotions, and present yourself as strong but not intimidating. Similarly, the Canadian Management Centre offers a course that teaches useful methods to communicate with confidence, diplomacy, and tact.
Another way to understand your personal communication style is to complete the Insight Inventory® to better understand how your style affects your communication effectiveness. This can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and allow you to flex your style to different situations and people.
Developing your communication skills can positively impact your professional image and how others view your work and performance. It can also improve your relationships with others and enable positive results through effective communication.
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Recognising the impact of emotions on your communication
Emotions have a significant impact on our communication, and recognising this impact is essential for effective and credible interactions. Emotional intelligence (EI) is a key concept in understanding how emotions shape our communication. EI encompasses both personal and social competence, with personal competence relating to our ability to recognise and manage our own emotions, and social competence involving our capacity to understand and connect with others.
On a personal level, emotions can influence our communication in several ways. Firstly, emotions can affect our cognitive processes, including our attention, memory, and decision-making. For example, feeling nervous before a date may be due to the potential interference with our goal of having a good time and making a connection. This nervousness may then impact our communication during the date, affecting our ability to express ourselves effectively and build a connection with our date. Additionally, emotions can influence our physical responses, such as increasing our heart rate or causing us to blush, which can, in turn, impact our verbal and non-verbal communication.
Emotions can also shape our behaviour and interactions with others. Hostile emotions like anger, contempt, disgust, jealousy, and envy can be particularly detrimental to relationships if not managed appropriately. For instance, anger can lead to yelling, unpleasant facial expressions, or even physical attacks. Research has shown that an inability to control anger can negatively impact our health and wellbeing. Therefore, recognising and regulating our emotions is crucial for maintaining positive relationships and effective communication.
Furthermore, emotions play a significant role in how we interpret and respond to others' communications. Emotional cues, such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, provide valuable context for understanding the information being conveyed. By recognising and interpreting these emotional cues, we can enhance our understanding of the speaker's message and intent. This awareness also enables us to adapt our communication style to build rapport and improve the effectiveness of our interactions.
To improve our recognition of the impact of emotions on our communication, several strategies can be employed. Firstly, self-reflection through journaling can help us identify our emotions, understand their triggers, and process our thoughts and fears. Additionally, seeking an outside perspective from a counsellor, friend, or colleague can provide valuable insight into our emotional responses and communication style. Open and honest conversations with a trusted partner or peer can also enhance emotional awareness and mutual understanding. By adopting these practices, we can improve our emotional intelligence and, consequently, the effectiveness and credibility of our communication.
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Building rapport and strengthening relationships
Building rapport is about driving a meaningful connection with another person. It is a foundation of great workplace relationships as it facilitates collaboration, unlocks mutual trust, and enhances communication skills. While it may come naturally to some, building rapport is a soft skill that can be learned and mastered with effort and intentionality.
To build rapport, it is important to demonstrate self-awareness and emotional intelligence. This involves understanding how your words and actions can affect others and being able to recognize and respond to emotions in yourself and others. Pay attention not just to words but also to non-verbal cues like tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language.
To establish mutual trust, practice openness and honesty in your interactions. Show authentic interest in others by asking questions and seeking to understand their needs and wants. This is particularly important in customer-facing roles, where building rapport with customers is essential for effectively supporting them.
Outside of individual interactions, purposeful projects such as giving back programs and fundraisers can provide opportunities for employees to build rapport as a team. These shared experiences create a sense of belonging and enhance the working environment by reducing toxicity and promoting positive mental health.
Remember, building rapport is about more than just using specific techniques. It's about applying higher-level concepts that strengthen your interpersonal skills and allow you to form and maintain meaningful connections over time.
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Adjusting your message to your audience
Firstly, it is important to recognize your own communication style and how it may be influenced by stress. Understanding your natural approach to communication will help you identify areas for improvement and develop a more effective style. For example, you may tend to become emotional or conflict-prone when stressed, which can hinder your ability to communicate diplomatically. By recognizing this, you can actively work on managing your emotions and maintaining a respectful, civil tone, even in difficult situations.
Secondly, being able to adapt your communication style to suit your audience is crucial. This may involve considering factors such as gender, generation, and position. For instance, you may need to adjust your language or tone to ensure it is appropriate and understandable for the person you are speaking to. Flexibility is key, as what works in one situation or with one person may not be effective in another context or with a different audience.
Additionally, it is important to be a consistently professional communicator, even when faced with challenging circumstances. This means being aware of the impact your communication has on your professional image and ensuring that you are applying proven techniques to maintain a credible and effective style. For example, active listening, questioning skills, and positive modeling can help you gain cooperation and respect from your audience, strengthening your relationships and enabling positive outcomes.
Overall, adjusting your message to your audience requires self-awareness, flexibility, and a commitment to continuous improvement. By recognizing your own communication style, understanding your audience, and adapting your approach, you can effectively convey your message while maintaining diplomacy, tact, and credibility.
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Maintaining a professional image
Recognize the Impact of Communication on Your Professional Image: Understand that your communication style directly influences how others perceive you. Being diplomatic, tactful, and credible can enhance your professional image and make you more well-liked. Recognize that these skills may not come naturally to everyone and that emotions and conflicts can easily derail even the most skilled communicators.
Develop Effective Communication Skills: Strive to become a consistently professional communicator, even in challenging circumstances. This involves developing dexterity and grace in dealing with new or unfamiliar situations. Learn to speak honestly and confidently, manage your emotions effectively, and give and receive constructive criticism. Recognize how you come across to others and present yourself as strong, yet non-intimidating.
Flex Your Communication Style: Understand your personal communication style, including how stress affects your communication traits. Develop the ability to adapt your style to effectively communicate with diverse individuals, considering factors such as gender, generation, and position. This flexibility ensures that your message is conveyed appropriately and well-received by your audience.
Apply Proven Techniques: Seek training and guidance to learn proven techniques for diplomatic, tactful, and credible communication. This includes choosing the right words and emotional tone for different business interactions. Develop active listening and questioning skills to strengthen your communication effectiveness.
Build Positive Relationships: Gain cooperation and respect by modeling positive behaviors. Understand that standing up for yourself effectively can strengthen relationships and enable positive outcomes. Learn to disagree agreeably, navigate disagreements constructively, and create understanding and respect.
By focusing on these aspects, you can maintain a professional image and effectively communicate with diplomacy, tact, and credibility.
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Frequently asked questions
Effective communication can positively impact your professional image, how others view your work and performance, and your prospects for career advancement.
It takes awareness, training, and the know-how to apply proven techniques to all kinds of situations. You can develop your communication skills by taking courses or workshops that teach you how to choose and use the most appropriate words and emotional tone for every business interaction.
Topics include understanding the history and use of diplomacy, demonstrating the main techniques of diplomacy, conflict resolution techniques, communicating with all stakeholders, conveying important information, negotiating with others, and resolving interpersonal conflicts.
Key takeaways include learning to disagree in an agreeable manner, addressing difficult situations assertively and diplomatically, and gaining cooperation and respect by modeling positive behaviors.
