Developing Effective Communication Skills: A Self-Reflection Essay

Tolerance for Disagreement

This is a self-refection essay to develop an understanding of my communication skills effectively. I would be analyzing the scores achieved by me by using five diagnostic tools and thereby learning my weakness. I would then conduct a literature review followed by a action plan to develop my skills and become a leader in the future.

Tolerance for disagreement is one of the effective tools that one can use to analyze by which an individual would be able to tolerate other people who are disagreeing what the individual believes to be correct (Teven, Richmond & Mccroskey, 1988). This scale is quite similar to measuring argumentativeness that states that individuals who are high on it are more capable to deal with disagreements effectively and those who are low in argumentativeness cannot tolerate disagreements. After completing the tool that contained of 15 questions to be answered with Likert scale of five, I noted that my score came out to be 46. According to the category of scores, I fell in the moderate category that showed that I have moderate level of tolerance to disagreement. I was on the border between the moderate and high level of tolerance and therefore, I can consider myself that I am quite tolerant to other people disagreeing with me. This would help me to take part in effective negotiation on behalf of my companies with the clients and will reduce the chances of occurrence of conflicts. Moreover, I believe that this skill would be helping me to take part in effective teamwork where I would be able to be tolerant of the different feedbacks or suggestions they give me (Shaw & Barry, 2015). This would help me to prevent any power struggles and proceed on with the work.

The talkaholic scale is another important diagnostic tool that helps individuals to measure compulsive communication of individuals.  Some individuals are seen to be verbal and they find it difficult to remain quiet when present with other people ( McCroskey & McCroskey, 1988). However, researchers are of the opinion that people with higher talkaholic scale are not those who talks more than wanted or those who speak offensive words or disturb other people by their communication and interaction. It is interesting to see that such people are positively perceived by others and are likely to be seen as leaders or more competent.  I have scored 32 in this tool and therefore I fall in the category of the borderline talkaholic. I am able to control my talking in most of the cases but sometimes I cannot prevent myself from speaking up even when I know that I may face issues if I speak in the situation. Therefore, I believe that I need to develop critical analyzing power and self regulation power by which I can control myself from speaking up in strenuous situation  but at the same time I also need to develop my speaking capabilities so that I am perceived properly and can develop myself as a leader in the future (Pearson et al., 2017).

Talkaholic Scale

The third tool is called the Personal Report of Intercultural communication apprehension called PRICA. This tool mainly helps individuals to assess how well they can communicate with the other individuals who are coming from other backgrounds. This tool mainly helps to say how well a person has developed skills like cultural competence in communication, cultural sensitivity, overcoming cultural biasness, being culturally aware and many others. Often intercultural communicational skills are very important for organizations who are working more than in one country (Neuliep & McCroskey, 1997). They need to talk with various people or different cultures accordingly to their cultural preferences and therefore it becomes important for the individuals to develop intercultural communication skills so that they can respectfully communicate with people of different culture. It is important for effectively marinating teamwork with a team comprising of people, of different backgrounds and such skill also help in making business overseas. In this tool, I had got a score of about 28. This score falls in the low category of intercultural communication apprehension and therefore I need to develop my skills in this aspect. In my career, I might need to interact with individual coming from different culture or I might have o communicate with clients of different cultural. Verbal and non-verbal communication skills should be exhibited by me in a culturally competent manner with such people is important to achieve success and productivity (Herman et al., 2015). Therefore, I should try to develop my intercultural communication skills.

Non-verbal immediacy are those behaviors as well as the cues that provide signal to the individuals about the positive feelings towards each other engaged in a communication procedure. The tool therefore helps in a way by which individuals are able to understand how well they are faring in the nonverbal immediacy (McCroskey & Richmond, 1995). A five-point scale was used to answer 26 important questions by which my competence of the skill would be reflected. In this tool, I have scored about 101 that fall in the medium category. The ones whose score is above 104 have a high level of this skill and whose score is below 83 is considered low on the skill. Since I fall in the moderate category, I believe that I still have to work hard on my non-verbal skills. Researchers are of the opinion that body language and other non-verbal skills have a great contribution to the development of effective bonds among team members, impressing clients, developing trust, showing respect and many others in the organizational workplace (Charter, 2017). Therefore, I should try my best to work on these skills more so that I can develop proper non-verbal communication skills.

Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension (PRICA)

Self-Perceived communication Competence scale is one of the tools that help individuals to understand how individuals can successfully communicate with different stakeholders in different situations. This helps the individuals to understand the different domains where they need to excel so that they can communicate successfully with each type of person and different situations and hence can successfully maintain relationships, crack deals, negotiate effectively and others (McCroskey & Richmond, 1993). Here, I had to answer 12 questions by providing myself with scores like that of between 0 and 100. From the marks that I have obtained, I realized that I fall mainly in the moderate categories between the high and low levels of marks allocated by the researchers. It was found that apart from the high score that I achieved in the domain of friends, I have achieved moderate scores in communication approach and skills  in all other aspects like that of the public speaking, meeting, group, dyad, stranger, acquaintance and friends (Albert, Nakayama & Martin, 2015). Therefore, I need to work little more in this aspect so that I can develop effective communication skills and achieve high level of success n future.

Last month, I had to accompany my mentor to a meeting where clients from Japan were coming to develop a partnership with our organization. We were planning to launch our products in the nation of Japan and we had to establish our offices in Japan thereby creating teams comprising of employees from our organization along with Japanese people. However when the client came from Japan, I made a number of mistakes that resulted in a strenuous situations in the meeting. While interacting with them, I maintained an eye contact with them as the western culture considers this skill to be a confident approach to develop trust. I had no idea that Japanese culture do not prefer eye contacts with the people they are interacting and find it disrespectful. This made the clients disappointed. Silence is considered to be an important part in their conversations. They believe that holding back from their speaking is one of the effective ways of preserving harmony as well as demonstrate trustworthiness and reliability. When the clients were maintaining silence during the conversation, I misunderstood the situation thinking that they were not able to understand our plan and were getting confused. Therefore, I tried to fill up the space and started making them understand once again. They were thoroughly upset with us and approached to my mentor stating that we had not properly prepared our staffs to conduct business with them. This made me upset and my mentor told me that I lacked intercultural communication skills entirely; this made them lose the deal.

Non-Verbal Immediacy

During the time of my placement, I was provided the opportunity to become the leader of the team of five members. We were given a project that we were supposed to complete within the deadline provided to us. However, after few days of working with me, I found my members of the team to complain to the senior authority that they are not comfortable in working with me. They stated that I am quite harsh on them and are very strict on their approaches. They also stated that they do not feel comfortable in working with me, as they cannot relate my verbal and non-verbal cues effectively. With the instruction of my mentor, I conducted a thorough analysis in my reflection journal and thereby came to understand that I do not have non-verbal skills of communication. I have stern facial expressions that make them feel that I am strict and unapproachable. I have a loud pitch of voice that makes them feel that I am scolding them or I am complaining about their work although I am trying to make them understand gently. Moreover, I also have a habit of sitting arm crossed and this gives them a feeling in the feedback sessions, that I am negative about their approach and feedbacks. Therefore, I need to develop my non-verbal communication skills effectively for becoming a successful leader in the future.

For making successful business in the international arena, present day researchers are of the opinion that intercultural competition is a significant part for making business. Every employee should have the knowledge of culture by which each can manage culturally different business environments and expectations (Popescu & Stoica, 2015). One of the studies suggests that intercultural sensitivity is one of the most important aspects of intercultural communication procedures. This mainly involves the ability of recognition of the multiple perspectives  of an event as well as  the behaviors  that helps the individuals to recognize one’s own cultural values and also of the others and thereby pick up verbal and non verbal skills that maintains respect in the communication procedure (Greenberg, 2017). Understanding one’s own culture is important in developing the idea that the approach of doing a particular activity that is accepted by the individual’s culture is only one of the several approaches and that other cultures may follow different procedure and tradition for that. Researchers are of the opinion that individuals should develop the ability of recognizing the needs of the listeners through effective verbal as well as non verbal signals in communication and this helps in empathizing culturally different people and thereby helps in adjusting to their ways to provide them importance and respect (Rosales et al., 2017). Another important aspect other than intercultural sensitivity is the intercultural communication. Researchers have defined this as the ability of an individual to adjust to the communication style of the people from other cultures to meet and align with the communicative needs of the other people from different cultures (Kurts et al., 2016). It should be remembered that communication needs of people of different culture are mainly influenced by the culture specific norms of people for expressing themselves and therefore they are more likely to differ from their own cultural norms. Intercultural communication is also based on the capability to foresee the expectations as well as the evaluation of the culturally different others (Quirke, 2017). The main difference observed between intercultural communication and intercultural sensitivity is that it depends on the actual behaviors in communicative situations and indicates it dependency on the degree of flexibility stating how much people can adapt to communicative requirements that are different from their own culture. Managing uncertainty is also another important aspect of intercultural communication and has been stated by the studies of . Researchers mainly define this aspect as the ability for the management of the greater uncertainty of the intercultural as well as the international situations (Pearson, 2017). Every employee should be able to develop the ability of becoming flexible and working effectively with new people in different types of intercultural situations. By the term managing uncertainty, the researchers are developing the ability for adapting to new, unfamiliar and thereby uncertainty situations. Many studies have helped to realize the main benefits of developing intercultural communicate skills. Researchers have stated that ability to develop intercultural communication effectively across cultures provide much significance to both the organizations as well as the businesspersons (Merett et al., 2018). These mainly helped in developing quick problem solving, stronger decisions making, increased productivity, steadier workflow, enhanced professional image and thereby stronger business relationships. This brings success so organizations helping it to establish branches in other nations and become a globalised company.

Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale

Non-verbal communication skill is considered to be one of the most important aspects of effective communication. Messages that are communicated always associate with different body gestures, body language, facial expressions, eye contacts and many others that have the potential to provide additional effect to the importance of the verbally communicated message. It has been stated in studies that when there is conflict between verbal and non verbal communications, the receivers are seen to accept the non-verbal communication over the verbal one (Kurtz et al., 2016). Even many of the participants in the studies have shown that when words are under the control, there may be situations when the body language tells something different. Even the tiniest of the facial expressions and movements helps to show the real thoughts and feelings of the speaker and hence it has the capability to either develop a situation or disrupt a situation. Researchers state ““The silent signals of non-verbal communication tend to reveal underlying motives and emotions—fear, honesty, joy, indecision, frustration—and much more. The tiniest gestures, like the way your co-workers stand or enter a room, often speak volumes about their confidence, self-worth, and credibility. And the way you sit, stand, or look at others reveals more about your true intent than you may realize.” A facial expression is one of the most important forms of non-verbal communication (Wu et al., 2015). The look on a person’s face id the first thing that the receivers see that has an initial impact on them. This impact has the capability to modify the thought process of the individuals largely. One important thing stated by researchers are that facial expressions are similar for happiness, anger, fear, sadness and other all over the world irrespective of cultural barriers. Gestures are the deliberate movements and the signals that are conducted during communication have the capability to transfer information even without the use of words. Non-verbal signals have the power to influence debates or other meetings of influencing higher official, clients, customers and many others and therefore, such skills need to be developed by individuals (Cole et al., 2017). Paralinguistics are also important forms of non verbal communication and is quite different from language and words. This is mainly seen to include factors that involve tones of voice, loudness, pitch a swell as inflection. Many participants have been seen to be state that with the help of strong but encouraging voice. Listeners might interpret approval or enthusiasm. When the same words would be stated in a hesitant tone, the same words would convey disapproval as well as lack of interest. Posture and body language also has the capability to convey great deal of information (Atkinson et al., 2017). Researchers have stated interpretations of the defensive postures, leg crossing, arm crossing and different others have their own internal meanings perceived by the receivers and therefore the internal knowledge about each movement should be well known so that the speaker do not convey improper information. Haptics, appearance, eye gaze, proxemics and others are also important non verbal skills that are extremely important for developing effective relationship, bonds and trust among the members.

Overcoming Cultural Biasness

The action plan that should be developed would be based mainly on SMART goals. The goal that I need to aim for is the develop of intercultural communication skill and secondly the non-verbal communication skill. The goals, which are set, would be SMART in the way as follows:

The goals need to be specific. For development of intercultural communication skills, I would mainly conduct researches of the evidence-based articles where the researchers have put forward recommendations for the development of intercultural communication. I would be also searching different internet articles and blogs from where I would be able to collect information about the different business cultures followed by the different nations and thereby develop cultural awareness and communication skills that align with the communication styles of the other nations. For developing non-verbal communication, I would be joining workshops and would be maintaining reflective journal. The goal is measurable. I would be communicating with different members of my intercultural team and will ask them for feedback about the skills that I am gradually developing. Their feedback will help me to know how well I am faring in my approach (Sheriff et al., 2014). Moreover, I would also discuss my learning with the mentor and ask him to provide his valuable feedback. This would also help me to measure my skills that I have developed. For non-verbal communication, the mentors of the workshop classes would be holding mock tests and roleplay sessions where they would judge my performance. They would provide marks and this would help me to understand how I am faring with this non-verbal communication skills. The goal is attainable. This is because I can easily get the journal article from the university library and can go through them in my home during study hours and this would not require me to undertake extra expenditure and proper planning. Moreover, I can also search for the internet articles and blogs not only through internet connection on my personal computer as well as on my smart phone as well. Therefore, the goal is easily attainable and does not require extra resources. For non-verbal communication, I will attend the classes on Weekends and this would help me by not being absent in my university but also being able to complete my workshop attentively. The goal is said to be relevant. This is because collecting of the articles would help me to know the view of different researchers and the different things they believe to be helpful for us to gather information and develop ourselves (Fillipone et al., 2016). Therefore, I would be using this as the guideline and framework that would be helping me to develop knowledge. Moreover, the internet will give me specific knowledge on the different cultures that will make me careful while communicating with people of different culture. For non-verbal communication, the workshops will help me to take part in role-play where I will get opportunity to experience different situations and thereby learn how to communicate in each situation successfully. This would help me develop my non-verbal communication skills. The timeframe that would be required is six months.

Effective Leadership through Communication Skills

From the above discussion, it can be seen that effective communication helps to overcome conflicts, manage teams, and work effectively. Non-verbal communication skills and intercultural communication skills are two important aspects associated with effective communication. Therefore, individuals should try to develop skills that would help them to be expert in communication and thereby reach the zenith of success.

Activity	1 month	2 month	3 month	4 month	5 month	6 month
Reflective journal
Workshop classes
Development of conceptual knowledge and participating in role paly
Maintenance of different types of evidence based journals
Discussion with mentor

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