2 part paper, will need the same tudor for both parts

A Psychological Approach

R Krishnaveni* and R Thamaraiselvi**

Interpersonal communication is the ‘master key’ to success in every profession. However, it is so intrinsic to our current office-life situations that overcoming the natural barriers like anger, fear, anxiety, etc., and also achieving effectiveness during the interpersonal process is undoubtedly becoming a complex act. This may be due to the high influence of fast track changes in the socio-economic and cultural aspects of professional lives. Especially, women face communication challenges when they tend to expose their feelings to others in the workplace and this may sometimes lead to conflicting issues or even cause damage to professional relationships. Hence, a descriptive research was undertaken among women academicians to identify the psychological barriers at the workplace for communicating effectively with others. About 50 women from reputed educational institutions were chosen at random as samples and a questionnaire was used to ascertain their commonly suffered psychological barriers that intrude into their workplace interactions. An initiative was made to correlate some highly influencing factors with interpersonal effectiveness and also to test their significance in the process. Statistical tools like Correlation, Regression and Independent Sample t-test were adopted to substantiate the findings of the study. Some suggestions were furnished to mitigate the natural blocks in the process and to build strong professional relationships with others. This survey can help the professional women to understand the psychological influence in the interpersonal process and to try and overcome them by revitalizing their communication style in their office-lives. The study can be further extended to women working in other fields like banking, insurance, hospitals, hotels, manufacturing, etc., in order to optimize their interpersonal skills and ultimately empower them throughout their career.

Introduction

Communication is a complex process of transmitting and understanding information between two or more people. It is also an integral part of organizations that support

* Assistant Professor, PSG Institute of Management, Coimbatore, India.

E-mail: [email protected]

** Lecturer, PSG Institute of Management, Coimbatore, India. E-mail: [email protected]

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved.Interpersonal Skills of Professional Women: A Psychological Approach

decision-making, work coordination, persuasion of people and enhance sustainable developments. However, effective communication occurs only when the sender’s ideas or thoughts are transmitted to and understood by the intended receiver in the same sense.

Today, every organization expects its members to focus on establishing an effective interpersonal communication network among their superiors, peers, subordinates and supporting staff overtime, so as to achieve organizational goals through a collaborative effort rather than that of individuals. Interpersonal communication skills relate to ‘the ability to interact with others for achieving sustainable relationships at work place’. However, due to the impact of workforce diversity, teaching professionals suffer several barriers that create a ‘noise’ in the interpersonal communication process, thereby inducing new communication challenges in their everyday lives. They may communicate with others everyday but they may not be effective in creating good professional relationships.

For instance, misunderstandings can happen when inappropriate words are used, voice intonation is not taken care of, the style of expression is unsuitable to the receiver, silence during conversations or when there is an usage of non-verbal gestures that have different meanings and degrees of importance in different cultures. Therefore, perceptual biases can lead people in an organization to misinterpret the messages and create a ‘communication gap’ between them. It also allows the strong professional relationships to break indefinitely. ‘Filtering’ the messages in the communication process may help the individuals to overcome the barriers that intrude the flow of information and also enhance communication effectiveness for both the sender and the receiver. Filtering refers to editing the mistakes, deleting the slang usages, adding appropriate words, delaying negative messages or modulating the tone of conversation, etc. Strong relationships in the professional front duly depend on filtered messages that flow upward, downward and horizontally among the members in an organization. Competent communicators are those with the ability to identify appropriate communication patterns in any situation and achieve success by applying the knowledge. Such communicators are essential for every organization to meet its objectives within the stipulated time and also for reinventing the communication strategies to overcome the structural bottlenecks in the organization.

Theoretical Framework

According to William James, American psychologist and philosopher, the most immutable barrier in nature is between one man’s thoughts and another’s. It conveys that psychological barriers are responsible forcommunication distortions that occur in any organization. Emotions play a significant role in influencing communicative behavior, and there are some dominating emotions that are expressed unknowingly with an effect on the receiver.

Carl Rogers, the renowned psychologist, identified two main characteristics that interfere with interpersonal communication. They are the tendency to evaluate the sender’s message and not listening with understanding. This reveals that the psychological state of a person highly contributes to the process of transferring information. Since it is not feasible to eliminate the natural feelings during interactions, ‘self-awareness’ becomes the first step towards improving interpersonal communication. The second step is to attain consensus with an understanding between the sender and the receiver. Exaggerated perceptions and defensive responses can be mitigated by listening with a proper understanding. Effective listening can act as a catalyst to create mutual understanding in any communicative situation.

Premature evaluation, preconceived notions, inattention due to lack of interest, distrust in communication, fear, poor retention and defensive behavior are some of the communication blocks found commonly among professionals in any organization. These blocks reduce the possibility of effective interpersonal communication between the communicator and the respondent. Even a simple conversation can take the form of an interpersonal conflict that may threaten an organization at both ends. The response anticipated by the communicator may not be received and this may cause a communication failure with strong reactions on the workplace.

Therefore, the role of the communicator needs to be redefined by developing ‘self-awareness’ about interpersonal competencies, by improving the ‘communicative behavior’ for exchanging information in a positive way and also by observing the receiver’s natural feelings to react appropriately. In order to conduct this communication survey, ‘self-awareness’ and ‘communicative behavior’ were the two key factors considered, to assess the interpersonal effectiveness of the respondents. Further, self-disclosure and interpersonal orientation were chosen as the characteristics of ‘self-awareness’ while characteristics like trust, receptiveness, considerateness, consciousness, participation, courteousness and emotions were identified for ‘communicative behavior’, based on the psychological aspects of human interactions in the workplace (See Figure 1).

Purpose of Study

The main aim of the study is to assess the interpersonal effectiveness of professional women at the workplace and to ascertain the relationship between the interpersonal characteristics. The study also aims at identifying the psychological factors to analyze their influence on interpersonal communication effectiveness of women. It also aims to compare the interpersonal competencies of the technical and non-technical professionals for a significant difference between them. Undertaken only among women academicians working in various institutions situated in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu, India), the study can be further extended to other geographical locations or even stretched to women working in various other service sectors like hospital, entertainment, hospitality, etc.

Methodology

A descriptive communicative research was designed to ascertain the impact of the mind over communicative behavior and also to identify natural mental barriers to effective interpersonal communication, especially among the professional women working in educational institutions. As a result, four reputed colleges in Coimbatore were selected, of which, two were engineering and the other two management sciences. They include 23 academicians from technical and 27 from non-technical stream of teaching in the institutions as samples. A predetermined questionnaire of five-point scales with open-ended questions pertaining to ‘self-awareness’ and ‘communicative behavior’ was adopted for data collection. The Karl Pearson Correlation method was used to discern the relationship between the key characteristics of interpersonal effectiveness like self-awareness and communicative behavior. Also, the variables contributing to these factors were analyzed to ascertain their relationship in the process. The Linear Regression method was used to assess the contribution of psychological factors to the interpersonal effectiveness of the respondents. Independent Sample t-test was utilized for assessing the significance of interpersonal competencies between the technical and management professionals in their organizational setting. Figure 2 shows the six factors chosen on psychological aspects of communication to analyze the communicative behavior of the respondents during their interactions.

Results

Self-Awareness and Communicative Behavior

Self-awareness and communicative behavior are the key factors that contribute to the interpersonal effectiveness of an individual in a working environment. Self-awareness refers to ‘observing one’s own inner feeling, thinking, experience and needs prior to the communication process’ and communicative behavior refers to ‘the way of conducting the interactions in the work place’.

Self-awareness and communicative behavior were taken asindependent variables and interpersonal effectiveness as the dependant variable for calculating the correlation coefficients using Karl Pearson Correlation method. Table 1 shows that there exists a significant relationship between the characteristics of interpersonal skills. Self-awareness and communicative behavior are closely associated with each other at 0.677; self-awareness is highly interrelated with interpersonal effectiveness at 0.936 and with communicative behavior at 0.892.

‘Self-disclosure’ and ‘interpersonal orientation’ are the main factors that contribute to the self-awareness of a communicator at the workplace. While self-disclosure refers to ‘communicating information about oneself to others for creating intimate relationships’, interpersonal orientation refers to ‘the process of interacting with others for mutual understanding’. Table 2 reveals that both the independent variables selfdisclosure and interpersonal orientation are significantly related to self-awareness at 0.788 and 0.818 respectively. Also, the variables self-disclosure and interpersonal orientation are interrelated with each other at 0.290.

The six psychological factors (Figure 2)—building trust, considerateness, consciousness, participation, emotions and receptiveness—were analyzed in the process for assessing the interpersonal behavior of an individual using Regression analysis. From Table 3, it can be inferred that the independent psychological factors are highly related with the dependant variable interpersonal effectiveness at 0.816 level.

The regression coefficients of the factors show that only some factors like building trust, considerateness, consciousness and participation seem to have significant relationship with interpersonal effectiveness of the respondents at 0.181, 0.205, 0.137 and 0.159 levels respectively. The other factors, emotions and receptiveness seem to have insignificant values for their contribution to the interpersonal behavior skills of academic women.

Technical and Non-Technical Competency

Women teaching in engineering colleges were compared with the women teaching in the management schools in Coimbatore using the Independent Sample t-test for testing their interpersonal capabilities at the workplace. The mean scores pertaining to the interpersonal characteristics of respondents were calculated and ‘t’ values were obtained at 95% confidence level, as shown in Table 4.

The results reveal that there is no significant difference between the technical and management professionals with regard to their ability to communicate effectively with others in learning organizations. The ‘t’ value against each variable is found to be more than 0.05 and hence it can be understood that both the respondent types behave similarly in any communicative situation.

Moreover, their tendency to disclose about themselves to others, to be considerate in conveying messages, to be highly conscious while speaking, and to participate actively in group communications are identified to be almost the same. But there seems to be a slight difference between them in aspects like having a mindset to interact with others, creating trust in relationships, expressing emotions during interactions and also being receptive when listening to others.

Discussion

· There is a positive correlation existing between self-awareness andinterpersonal effectiveness (0.936), between communicative behavior and interpersonal effectiveness (0.892) and also between self-awareness and communicative behavior (0.677). It means that both the ability to understand oneself and the communication style play essential roles in effective interpersonal skills. Also, an individual’s self-awareness contributes more to interpersonal behavior than the style of interaction (Table 1).

· Inter-correlation has been identified between the variables of self-awareness

(Table 2) and it can be inferred that the intention of creating a mindset to interact

with others is more related to self-awareness than the intention of disclosing about oneself to others. In order to understand oneself in a communicative situation, it is essential to focus on both the disclosing attitude and the orientation of the mind because they are also found to be interrelated (Figure 3).

· The psychological factors (Figure 3) building trust, considerateness,consciousness, participation, emotions and receptiveness were together found contributing up to 81% of the interpersonal effectiveness (Table 3).

· However, there is a significant influence of psychological aspects, likehaving the interest to create trust in relationships, sending considerate messages to others, communicating consciously and actively participating in teams, on the effective interpersonal communication process

(Table 3).

· There is no significant difference between the faculty members of engineeringand management institutions in the aspect of interpersonal communication behavior (Table 4). It conveys that all the women academicians seem to be aware about themselves and possess similar styles of communicating with others, and that they may not behave differently in communicative situations in spite of the differences in their campus cultures.

Implications

Interpersonal effectiveness of the respondents is highly dependant on the key characteristics—‘self-awareness’ and ‘communicative behavior’. Women working in educational institutions must develop interpersonal orientation and self-disclosing qualities in order to improve their ‘self-awareness’.

‘Communicative behavior’ can be tuned up with ‘self-awareness’ for communicating effectively in professional settings. Interpersonal communication styles of both technical and non-technical faculty members are similar at the workplace. There is a great impact of psychology on the interpersonal communication skills of women academicians. Building trust, being considerate, consciousness and participative qualities in female faculties contribute to their interpersonal effectiveness. Understanding oneself and communicating consciously can be emphasized upon women communicators in the teaching profession to achieve positive interpersonal relationships with their students, peers, subordinates and superiors.

Conclusion

Women, as knowledge facilitators, are essentially expected to build healthy relationships in the work front for achieving professional success. The ability to get along with other people is immensely helpful in enhancing their career and in enriching the existing potentials to provide sustainable growth in the future. However, the intensity of communication depends on the interpersonal styles that are adopted by them during their formal interactions.

Especially in the current cosmopolitan society, women need to establish a strong rapport with their superiors, peers, students and subordinates throughout their office-life and revitalize their communication skills for developing interpersonal effectiveness to meet their day to day challenges. Therefore, women in the teaching profession should certainly understand their multidimensional roles and their functions like persuading, influencing, teaching, guiding, coordinating, instructing and discussing among the members of the organization to change their interpersonal behavioral styles according to the communicative situations.

Even though teaching professionals tend to balance their emotions while communicating with others and also be receptive when listening to students, superiors or colleagues, the research findings recommend them to be cautious about their way of expressing trust, interest, empathy and consciousness during their interactions at the workplace.

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38 The Icfai Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. II, No. 1, 2008

Interpersonal Skills of Professional Women: A Psychological Approach 37