Specific Communication Skills for Success in Your Career

Allison Chandler is a freelance writer contributing to Communication Intelligence

by Allison Chandler
Special contribution

Successful communication is a key for a successful career. 

Entrepreneur reveals that companies can lose an average of $420,000 annually because a lack of proper communication between employees negatively affects their productivity and innovation.

In contrast, employees with useful communication skills can increase an organization’s productivity by 25%.

Professionals with high-level skills are also in demand due to abilities to build stronger work relationships through tacit knowledge like language, humor and negotiation skills.

To stand out in the workplace and better achieve career goals, here are the following skills to develop:

Active listening

Most people focus on developing their speaking skills. In contrast, successful employees know that they should learn how to speak and listen well. Active listening skills create an advantage because they help people acquire crucial information and understand others, allowing professionals to make more informed decisions on projects and build trust with clients.

Experts from Simon Fraser University show that active listening can bridge boundaries between managers and employees because it enlightens each party about their struggles at home and work.

Managers who listen deliberately are able to acknowledge differences, and guide employees to correct any possible faulty generalizations.

To learn how to become an active listener, one can use external tools to take down notes about a conversation or ask descriptive questions to absorb more information from others.

Empathy

Active listening is an essential competency because it fosters another communication skill: empathy. Empathy is an important trait for successful professionals because it helps them better understand — and get along with — customers or colleagues from all walks of life.

Unfortunately, Daniele Saccardi of Preply stated that many people fail to empathize with others because they already have so many things going on in their personal lives. A lack of empathy can additionally lead to passive-aggressive communication or cause people to make false assumptions about certain conversations.

These harmful habits cause rifts with co-workers or clients, which is why Saccardi recommends asking questions for clarification and sharing your sentiments about conversations.

Sharing feedback

Miscommunication happens frequently in the workplace. However, skilled professionals can avoid these conflicts because they know how to handle factors that lead to miscommunication, such as generational differences.

Through this ability, they can have the tough one-on-one conversations with bosses, team members, and clients without burning bridges.

To avoid conflicts in the workplace, Maryville University’s guide to ‘Effective Business Communication for Millennials and Gen Z’ recommends sharing feedback about you and your colleagues’ communication skills.

You must first be open to hearing specific ways on how you can improve your communication strategies across different mediums and with different types of colleagues to avoid possible causes of trouble on your end.

Likewise, it’s also encouraged to open up about any communication problems with colleagues, to improve camaraderie.

Non-verbal cues

Non-verbal cues are subtle, but can make a big difference in the tone and direction of each conversation. These small signals show someone’s care, honesty, and interest in the conversation, which is why successful professionals pay extra attention to their body language in crucial meetings.

Your ability to manage non-verbal cues is important in many instances, such as job interviews. The Balance states that your body language can show confidence, politeness, and even knowledge as a professional.

So if you want to ace that interview or win over a client, start by practicing smart, helpful non-verbal cues like making eye contact or maintaining a proper posture. You’ll seem more confident and professional to your co-workers and customers with practice.

Your communication skills can help you get far in your career. By working on them, you can build stronger relationships with the people at work and be more effective in expressing your own ideas.

Allison Chandler is a freelance writer