Many people have mentioned at least once about interpersonal skills. However, what on earth is this term, actually? If you are wondering what kind of skill it is, you will get some information about that in this article below.
First, let’s define interpersonal skills. According to Wikipedia, interpersonal skills are sets of actions that are used to interact effectively with other people. In short, you can say that these sets of skills are social skills required to communicate and interact with other people—be it in nonverbal or verbal ways. If you are lacking such skills, it may lead you to a state called as social awkwardness.
According to Leary in 1957, interpersonal skills are related to several categories, which are dominance vs. submission, autonomy vs. control, love vs. hate, and aggression vs. affiliation. These items are studied in social psychology—an academic discipline that focuses on the study of interpersonal skills.
So, what are interpersonal skills examples? You can see that in this list below:
- Social perceptiveness – a skill that requires you to be aware of other people’s reactions and to be capable to respond in the right manner.
- Negotiation – a skill that requires you to be able to discuss and reaching an agreement.
- Mentoring – a skill that requires you to teach and help others to do something.
- Coordination – a skill that requires you to adjust your actions in coherence and in relation to others’ actions.
- Service orientation – a skill that requires you to look for ways too cooperate compassionately and to grow psychosocially great with people
- Persuasion – a skill that requires you to be able to persuade people or to be persuaded to believe in something.
Interpersonal Skills Benefits
People who have great interpersonal skills will be great in interacting with people. That makes him/her to be socially ‘fluent’ and not awkward. In the setting of workplace, these skills are highly required and people with great interpersonal skills are usually mingled better than ones who don’t. Therefore, it is not weird to witness many people who succeed in their workplace typically have great interpersonal skills.
Why People Lack Interpersonal Skills
You have read interpersonal skills examples above. It can be hard to achieve the same capability for all those interpersonal skills mentioned. There are lots of factors that contribute to lack of these skills.
The deficits in social skills can be caused by alcohol misuse, autistic spectrum disorders, ADHD, or mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. Aside from that, a dysfunctional family can also make people lack in interpersonal skills.
Bad interpersonal skills may do them bad, but it doesn’t mean it is not fixable. Consistent training and supportive living situation can help people to regain the skills better. Therefore, they can get what is interpersonal skills meant by a healthy and positive human interaction.
To conclude, interpersonal skills meaning is the sets of skill required to communicate and interact with people in a healthy and positive way. Sometimes these skills are also called as social skills, in short. Everyone should learn this in order to make their interaction with other people to be better and meaningful, not to make it in a way vice versa.
