Categories: Management Content

What are Interpersonal Skills and Their Types?

This may be the understatement of the year: right now there is an incredible need for engineers. All skill sets and experience levels are in high demand from start-ups to giant corporations, but that doesn’t mean that every engineer will be employed or successful.

Interpersonal Skills also called Human Relations Skills, Interpersonal skills are often called “People Skills” because they describe a person’s ability to interact with other people in a positive and cooperative manner. Unlike technical skills that people attend school for, interpersonal skills are considered soft skills that are typically developed over time through interactions.

Having good interpersonal skills is desired in most careers. The best members of a team often have strong skills that help them communicate and problem solve with other people in an organization. There is a long list of interpersonal skills, but among the most important for working in a team or workplace are conflict resolution, communication, problem solving and patience.

Interpersonal skills in the thriving STEM fields, interpersonal skills are becoming increasingly important in career advancement. They are just as important as the technical skills, as they help create personal branding and a well-rounded network of professionals, opening opportunities and creating relationships with peers. Following are the five key interpersonal skills that engineers and other STEM professionals should develop for career success:

Interpersonal Skills and Their Types

(I) Communication Skills: Communication skills are required equally at all three levels of management. A manager must be able to communicate the plans and policies to the workers. Similarly, he must listen and solve the problems of the workers. He must encourage a free-flow of communication in the organization.

Engineers and other STEM professions place the higher value on technical skills than communication. However, effective communication is equally as important. In order to succeed and be innovative in their position, they must be able to communicate their ideas.

(II) Creativity Skills: The technical skills to find and fix system issues is just as valuable as the creativity to find new ways to solve problems. People who continually push the envelope to find and develop new products, processes etc., get the recognition from peers and management.

(III) Adaptability Skills: Like creativity, the ability to continually push and change is invaluable. Challenges arise daily and as an employee and job seeker, you must be able to adapt, be creative, and communicate the issues to work towards a solution.

The world of work is changing at an ever increasing pace so employers actively seek out graduates who can adapt to changing circumstances and environments, and embrace new ideas, who are enterprising, resourceful and adaptable.

(IV) Collaboration Skills: Product creation, service execution, and system innovation do not happen by one person. Steve Jobs may have been an incredible driving force behind Apple’s success, but there were countless engineers, developers, and other professionals working to create, market and sell their products.

Collaborating in a team setting is not only necessary for a job seeker and employee, but is absolutely essential. Collaborative skills that we have identified as promoting the core concepts and supporting class norms are listed below. This list of collaborative skills has been used successfully by instructional teams to identify skills that address the ways students and teachers should interact to realize class norms. The list is not exhaustive and some classrooms may have to add skills to fully meet their needs.

(V) Leadership Skills: Leadership skills is the ability to influence human behavior. A manager requires leadership skills to motivate the workers. These skills help the Manager to get the work done through the workers.

We all know what a leader is, however becoming one takes thought. If you aspire to make a difference in your company/ city/ the world in any profession, leadership skills have to come into play. Developing these skills over time as you build relationships will help you achieve success beyond your career.

Advanced Interpersonal Skills

Human Relations Skills or Interpersonal Skills

Advanced Interpersonal Communication training sessions can be custom designed to suit your employees, address specific issues and industry. Pictures, questions, and material will all be modified to suit training requirements and objectives. Contact our staff for more details.

This Advanced Interpersonal Skills Session is designed to help your team members, management, and all staff communicate effectively with respect, build rapport, interact professionally and control their emotions for better business relations.

Objectives for the Advanced Interpersonal Skills

Being in control of your emotion is a benefit to you and your workplace. Learn how to be able to change your mood, attitude, and perception at the drop of a hat.

Questioning techniques will assist you in both control and information gathering. Learn how to quickly change a subject, motivate others and communicate more effectively using communication techniques.

Rapport is about similarities and connections. We show participants how to connect with others more with simple and effective mirroring techniques.

Reading body language will come in use throughout your life. We develop this area and discuss how participants can take advantage of this form of communication.

A positive mindset will move mountains. Everything will seem easier and you will feel empowerment with a positive outlook. Learn how to create the mindset for optimum performance and feel great when you need.

More behavioral tools for the participants here as we develop some techniques to improve on existing behavior.

learn about the four social categories and how to improve on your social category if you feel you need. We also discuss personalities and provide insight into why you do many of the things you do. This section also teaches you about others and their needs around you in the workplace.

Advanced Interpersonal Communications are a requirement today to work closely as teams and with other people. This session is designed to carefully address any areas of concern and help individuals increase their awareness of their interpersonal skills, including any unintended communications they may be making. This session provides a greater understanding of non-spoken communication and allows a much-improved level of interpersonal communications to be implemented in the company, improving management to staff and interdepartmental relationships, which also leads to greater productivity, happier staff, and a much higher standard of customer service provision.