If you’re wondering why you haven’t had the opportunity to move up in your career, perhaps you should carefully examine your interpersonal skills. How you relate to and connect with your supervisors and your colleagues will determine how quickly you progress — or how many promotions you are passed up for. If your social skills need a little polishing, here are a few tips on how to improve your interpersonal skills for career advancement.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Say “Thank You”
There is nothing wrong with a little politeness, and you’ll find that it goes along way. If someone — whether it be a colleague or an executive — gives you a hand, thank them for their efforts. Often, our professional lives become so hectic and involved that our manners fly out the window. If you are pegged as someone who is rude and ungrateful, you can kiss career advancement goodbye.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Keep Your Door Open
In every office, there is always at least one person whose door is always open and whose ears never tire of listening to others. Be that person. If your colleagues feel that they can come to you with problems concerns or even just a friendly chat, word will get around about your benevolence. Your boss will be looking for these qualities in upper management personnel, so don’t be afraid to open yourself up to people.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Listen & Learn
Don’t be so wrapped up in your own life and job that you don’t notice the lives of those around you. When Molly in accounting finds out she is pregnant, make time to stop by and offer congratulations. And if David in the next cubicle just lost his mother to cancer, offer to take over some of his responsibilities while he tends to family matters. There is nothing wrong with involving yourself in others’ lives and making a point to make them feel special.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Be An Active Listener
This is one of the most fundamental skills that one should learn when it comes to social skills. An active listener pays attention to what others say and repeats key phrases to demonstrate an understanding of the point. For example, if your manager were to say, “Joe, I’m having trouble getting everyone to turn in their weekly reports. They seem to just forget what they are supposed to do,” you would reply, “I’ve noticed that some people are forgetting their weekly reports, too. We might consider sending out an e-mail memo every Friday to remind them.” Not only have you shown your manager that you were listening, but you’ve also offered a solution to his problem.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Stay Away from Office Gossip
One of the major downfalls of a close office is gossip, which will run rampant no matter where you go. Avoid lowering yourself to talking behind people’s backs, and if you walk into a room where gossip is going on, turn around and walk away. Even better: encourage communication between colleagues who are having problems and work to convince them to speak directly to one another.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Be a Mediator
This goes hand-in-hand with office gossip; if you can, put yourself in a position to be a mediator. When a conflict arises between colleagues, jump in and facilitate conversation. Suggest solutions to their problems and help them work toward common goals.
Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Career Advancement
Now that you’ve read all of my tips, do you notice what they all have in common? Selflessness. In order to advance in your career, you’ve got to learn to put others first. It might seem like a backward way to achieve your goals, but it works marvelously. Show your superiors and your colleagues that you are all about the common good, and you will be rewarded with career advancement.
