The Importance Of Professional Communication And Assertiveness In The Workplace

Efficiency

1. Strong and effective communication skills are important in every aspect of life and when it comes to the professional development, the communication practices carried out at workplaces plays an important role in the development of the same. A professional spent 8-10 hours of the day at the workplace with his colleagues and management and in a professional environment. The communication process followed in the workplace is known as professional communication which is also known as formal communication. It helps in developing the professional behavior of employees which is benefitted to them in their growth and development (Femi, 2014). The importance of practicing professional communication for professional growth can be described as follows:

Regular practice and use of professional communication skills decrease the errors in the communication process followed by the professional. It increases their capacity to work and to deal with the other management in an effective manner. The performance of employees tends to improve if they are able to communicate their ideas and views in an efficient manner. All these improvements lead to developing confidence in the employees and also develops the sense of increasing the area of their expertise.

Efficiency

Professional communication skills make an employee more efficient in the workplace. The employees become able to express their points more clearly which leads to decrease in the understanding and thus reduces the chances of errors (Atre, 2013).

Team Building

The professional communications skills help a professional to deal with and interact with the diversified individuals which are considered as the main quality of leaders. Thus, effective communication practices at workplace develop leadership quality in the professionals and often gives them a chance to manage a group of different professional and individuals.

Advancement of Career

If the individuals are able to communicate more and more with the managerial level employees, then there will be better chances for the advancements of carrier opportunities and advantages. At the time of promotions and increments, the employees who are more active with the management are considered the first priority by the managers (Mahajan, 2015).

Networking

The communication skills help the professionals to build the strong network as they do not feel hesitate and shy while interacting with the client as well as with the customers. Their polite and professional behavior generally leave thee long-lasting impact on the customer’s mind.

Ability to influence others

A person having strong communications skills is always capable to influence others with his ideas and opinions and this practice of influencing the others start from the workplace at the time working in teams of the group or at the time of leading any project (Babcock & Bhatia, 2013).

Team Building

The professional with good communication skills are supposed to be more positive and extroverted with the outsiders. This helps in getting better feedback from the individuals around them and making them more liked which results in developing more positive self-esteem. Even without getting any type of positive feedback, the ability to articulate in front of others also helps the professionals to have a positive image of self-behavior.

Qantas airlines, a well-known airline of Australia have faced the situation of the decrease in professional growth of employees due to the improper communication strategies. The management had cut down the salaries of employees to minimize the cost of production and to maintain the profit level of the organization. The information about such step was not communicated to the employees and when they get to know about the same, they went on strike and stopped working. It resulted in bringing down the morale of employees and restricted their professional growth towards a positive stream. It also resulted in heavy loss to the organization due to the strike (Yahya & Saho, 2013).

Assertiveness can be defined as a skill regularly referred in the communication and social training (Bishop, 2010). If an individual is having this skill it means he is capable to stand up for his own or for the rights of another human being in a positive or calm manner. This skill does not allow the individuals to act in an aggressive manner or to accept the wrong because of any kind of passiveness. Assertive persons are able to understand their point without being upset and creating any problem for others (Ames, et al., 2017).

Assertive behavior includes:

• Being open in expressing thoughts, wishes and also motivating others to do the same.
• To listen to the thoughts of others and respond to them in an appropriate manner irrespective of the agreement from such thoughts.
• To be able to accept the responsibilities and be able to delegate such responsibilities to others(Parray & Kumar, 2016).

Aggressiveness is a form of human behaviour, which includes acting in a manner, which can be resulted in hurting the person for whom it is, directed (Plutchik & Kellerman, 2013). Aggression can be performed in physical, verbal or in a nonverbal manner. There are mainly three theories that can be used to understand the concept in an easy manner. The first theory states that people impulsively show anger to others to avoid the aggression against themselves. Another theory shows that aggression is inspired by the external sources while the last theory suggests that aggression provides a learning behaviour (Denson, et al., 2012).

Aggression is an emotional behaviour and thus it is not easy to measure the same. The factors that contribute to the aggressive behaviour can be distinguished by psychosocial and biological factors. The level of aggression can be reduced by providing character education, values clarification, moral education and psychological skills training and development programs (Krishnaveni & Shahin, 2014).

Advancement of Career

It is another form of psychological behavior which means shying away from expressing the own thoughts due to the fear of hurting someone. A submissive person does not seek to achieve his/her needs especially when someone has conflicting needs (Fenichel, 2014). The person having submissive personality is a type of shrinking violet, who avoids upsetting the other persons and do not want to hurt the feeling of others at in any kind of situation (Sanchez, et al., 2006).

The main assumption of submissiveness is that if an individual is inferior to other in some particular way and thus, the other people have superior rights and more powers in comparison to that inferior individual. The submissiveness often results in fall into the self-esteem of an individual, increasing the internal anger and emerging psychosomatic problems (Sardogan, et al., 2015).

Assertive behavior works as a balance point where negotiations and solutions can be found and enables and individuals to put forward his opinion without being shy or afraid. The benefits of being assertive at the workplace can be summarized as below:

• It enhances self-esteem and self-confidence
• Improves the performance of the team as well as of the individuals.
• Better stress management
• Enhances negotiation skills
• Help in creating a safe and peaceful environment at workplace
• Enhance the interpersonal relations with other employees as well as with the management.
• Increase the ability to adopt any kind of innovation trend in a positive manner(Ames, 2009).

3.

1. At first, I will try to make him feel comfortable by asking about some daily reports. After it’s, I will come straight to the point and will ask him about the reason for ordering the items in an excessive manner. I will try to use polite words and soft language to control his behavior of aggressiveness. If the reason presented by him is appropriate and is favorable for the business then I would allow him to continue his strategy to manage purchase. Also, I will say him to grant permission form management for making such type of purchase decisions in near future. This type of positive attitude may prevent the situation to become critical for both of us(Ames, 2008).

On the other hand, id he provides some unrealistic or inappropriate reason for making such an extra purchase, then I will ask him to stop such practices with immediate effect. Although I will try to use soft words at the time of communicating the same, I will also warn him not to do such acts in the future. This situation may create some communication conflicts because of the aggressive behavior of Thomas but being the purchasing officer and superior to him, I will try to control his anger by making him understand the impact of doing such act without being asked from management.

1. I will make him understand that an organization can never get success when the decision is taken without consulting form the management. I will let him know that excess purchase of stationery is resulting into increasing the storage cost as well as decreasing the overall profit of the organization. I would suggest him to work as per the norms of the organization and for the purpose of achieving the organizational goals. Being a person of aggressive behavior, Thomas usually performs the acts which are related to his personal growth and success. He puts own success at first place and then thinks about the success of the organization and his team members. I will try to communicate him that if an organization grows, then the employees working in that organization tend to grow automatically. I will also suggest him to change is behavior form being rude and aggressive to soft and assertive. It will also help him to adopt any kind of changes prevailing in the business environment(Mofrad & Mehrabi, 2015).
2. The level of conflict was able to be controlled. As he told me the reason behind making such a purchase with some aggressive expressions. He was expecting the same revert from my side but I did not follow the same and treated him very politely and in a calm manner. When I explained to him the reason for not doing such unethical activity and did not impose any penalty, he was very surprised and changed his way of talking. The assertive approach for dealing in such situations impacted him in a positive manner and he convinced to not repeat this mistake again in future.

However, he was not happy as his aggressive behavior was not allowing him to accept the same but due the authority and respect of my designation, he could not deny my orders.

At once, he denied my order to stop such purchasing but when I expressed the power of my authority and the level of mistake, he was ready to do the same. There was a conflict of words at initial stages of communication that was solved up to some extent till the end of our meeting (Shunmugam, et al., 2016).

However, I was expecting the conflict to become more serious because of the rude and aggressive behavior of Thomas. This communication helped us to understand the opinions of each other in a more precise manner.

Networking

References:

Ames, D., 2009. Pushing up to a point: Assertiveness and effectiveness in leadership and interpersonal dynamics. Research in Organizational Behavior , Volume 29, pp. 111-133.

Ames, D., Lee, A. & Wazlawek, A., 2017. Interpersonal assertiveness: Inside the balancing act. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(6), pp. 1-16.

Ames, D. R., 2008. In Search of the Right Touch Interpersonal Assertiveness in Organizational Life. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 17(6), pp. 381-385.

Atre, S., 2013. Impact of Communication Skills on Professional Effectiveness at the Top Level of Hierarchy. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(7), pp. 751-756.

Babcock, B. D. & Bhatia, V., 2013. Business and Professional Communication in Asia : An Introduction. Journal of Buisness and Technical Communication, 27(3), pp. 239-242.

Bishop, S., 2010. Develop Your Assertiveness. UK: Kogan Page Publishers.

Denson, T. F., DeWall, C. N. & Finkel, E. J., 2012. Self-Control and Aggression. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(1), pp. 20-25.

Femi, A. F., 2014. The Impact of Communication on Workers’ Performance in Selected Organisations in Lagos State, Nigeria. Journal Of Humanities And Social Science , 19(8), pp. 75-82.

Fenichel, O., 2014. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York: Routledge.

Krishnaveni, K. & Shahin, A., 2014. Aggression and its Influence on Sports Performance. International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health, 1(2), pp. 29-32.

Mahajan, R., 2015. The Key Role Of Communication Skills In The Life Of Professionals. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 20(12), pp. 36-39.

Mofrad, S. K. & Mehrabi, T., 2015. The role of self-efficacy and assertiveness in aggression among high-school students in Isfahan. Journal of medicine and Life, 8(4), pp. 225-231.

Parray, W. M. & Kumar, S., 2016. Assertiveness among Undergraduate Students of the University. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 4(1), pp. 283-291.

Plutchik, R. & Kellerman, H., 2013. Theories of Emotion. New York: Elsevier Science.

Sanchez, D. T., Kiefer, A. K. & Ybarra, O., 2006. Sexual Submissiveness in Women: Costs for Sexual Autonomy and Arousal. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN, 32(4), pp. 512-524.

Sardogan, M. E., Y?lmaz, M. & Bellici, N., 2015. A STUDY OF RELAT?ONSH?P BETWEEN SUBM?SS?VE BEHAVIOURS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 5(2), pp. 86-96.

Shunmugam, S., S. & Anand, V., 2016. Effectiveness of psychodrama on assertive behavior among nursing students. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Education and Research, 1(2), pp. 51-52.

Yahya, H. A. T. & Saho, E. S. A. R., 2013. Australian Airlines Industry Globalization and Labour Relations: A Case Study of Pilot Experience. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 14(3), pp. 1-4.

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