Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to understand, use and, manage their own emotions and those of others in productive ways to communicate effectively, relieve stress, overcome challenges, defuse conflicts as well as empathize with others (Petrovici and Dobrescu 1409).
It enables an individual to understand and recognize what others experience emotionally. It encompasses four aspects namely relationship management, social awareness, self-awareness, and self-management. Through emotional intelligence, one can alter their communication skills by understanding their emotions, enhancing their ability to interpret social cues, controlling their reactions and recognizing what triggers them emotionally. This, in turn, results in the appropriate filtration of responses both tonally and verbally, proper use of body language and correct answer to unexpected questions. This is because an individual can control, understand and interpret their own emotions and those of others.
Social Decentering
Social decentering involves the process of considering other peoples' thoughts, feelings and perspectives in certain situations (Cooper 67).
To enhance communication skills, one needs to learn about situations and people as well as assess their feeling concerning them including biases, perspectives, and motives. Further one can create time to consider the feelings of other individuals, sort them through the available possibilities and choose the reasonable and appropriate one as well as seeking clarification and confirmation, and lastly offer information based on that perspective. Doing this enables one to make predictions concerning others, gain compliance, effectively persuade individuals, foster relational development, and effectively counsel individuals. Moreover, it makes it easy for an individual to influence the decision that others make. This is because it creates or establishes confirming and supportive behavior. Taking into consideration others' feelings and thoughts make it easy and possible for an individual to trust the communicator.
How to Manage Misunderstandings
Misunderstanding often results from poor communication and cause easily cause conflicts as well as blaming others rather than accepting and taking responsibility (Samovar et al. 36).
To avoid creating misunderstandings, one should ensure that written communications get proofread for clarity, oral communications are evaluated to eradicate the possibilities of creating misunderstandings, and also engage in active listening. Moreover, one can ask the recipients to repeat the given instructions to confirm that they have understood what was said. This ensures that the intended information or instructions get correctly grasped. Further, it eradicates the blaming game that may occur as a result of misunderstandings. This is true as individuals will perceive and understand the information being communicated properly.
Apologizing
Apologizing is the act of portraying remorse for your actions and acknowledging the hurt and inconveniences that you have caused to other people or an individual (Chiles 8).
After hurting an individual, it is always essential to express remorse through the use of words such as 'I'm sorry.' Next, it is vital to take responsibility for your behavior or actions. Further, adopt measures to correct the situation and promise that it will never happen again. This leads to the reestablishment of broken trust and relationships by enabling individuals to talk again and making them comfortable with one another. This is because the involved individuals forgive each other and thus reduce or eradicate the existing conflicts.
Information Triage
It entails the process of collecting, sorting as well as prioritizing information to recognize what is most valuable and ignore everything else (McLeskey et al. 22).
When communicating, an individual should identify the issues or concerns that matter to the present situation. This improves clarity as recipients get presented with the relevant information. Further, it saves the time consumed when explaining or introducing large amounts of raw information that is non-essential. This is the case as the communicator will only present the relevant information as per the present situation.
Works Cited
Chiles, Benjamin W. "Apologies, and Apologizing." The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication (2015), p. 8.
Cooper, Martha. "Decentering Judgment: Toward a Postmodern Communication Ethic." Judgment Calls. Routledge, 2018, p. 67.
McLeskey, James L., Michael S. Rosenberg, and David L. Westling. Inclusion: Effective practices for all students. Pearson, 2017, p. 22.
Petrovici, Amalia, and Tatiana Dobrescu. "The role of emotional intelligence in building interpersonal communication skills." Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014), p. 1409.
Samovar, Larry A., et al. Communication between cultures. Nelson Education, 2015, p. 36.
