TO GO FARTHER AND FARE BETTER WITH SOUND RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SKILLS.
Relationship management is facilitated by the three emotional intelligence skill of self-awareness, self-management and social-awareness. To notice your feelings and judge if your needs are being satisfied is what you accomplish with self-awareness, while your self-management skills aid you to express your feelings and act constructively to nurture the connection or relationship. Not in the least, your social-awareness skills sets you to understand the other person’s needs and feelings.
For you to be successful in relationship management, there is the need for you to be open and curious. Being open is to wisely and intentionally share information about yourself with others. The chances of being misinterpreted by others will be greatly reduced when people know about you. For instance, one’s irritation at others’ lack of punctuality could be seen in a new light when one relates an earlier regimented military life. It holds good to show interest in and learn about another person so that you can put yourself in a better position to meet his or her needs and not misunderstand them. Choosing the right timing and setting to ask your questions is also helpful in this regard. Right at the source of others’ appreciation of you, are questions that help you to learn about them.
To hone your relationship management skills is to ask the important question whether your communication style is direct, indirect, comfortable, serious, entertaining, discrete, controlled, chatty, intense, curious, cool or intrusive. Some good will come out of it when you take some time to list the upsides of your communication style, the things people appreciate about how you communicate with them and the downside, the things that create confusion and problems in your interactions with others. The upsides could be good attentiveness, empathic body language and tone of voice, sensitivity and patience, while the downside could be abruptness, brashness, insensitivity, derogatory body language and tone of voice. You will put yourself to good advantage in your relationships when you work to improve the upsides of your communication style and eliminate the downsides. To do that is to tune up your relationship management skills.
Our body language often betrays our feelings despite our spirited efforts to conceal them with our words. Communication issues frequently arise when what we say verbally does not match with the accompanying body language. Hence uttering words of encouragement and appreciation in a muted voice and with a frowning face will only bring confusion about, as the words and body language are not in harmony. Most times, people trust what they see as against what they hear. The relationship management skill that helps you to resolve the mixed signals points to using your self-awareness skills to identify your emotions; and your self-management skills, to select the particular feelings to express and how to express them. It is quite productive to choose a constructive body language, words and behaviour to match with our strong emotions like anger and not allow them to run us about unfruitfully.
Simple courtesies expressed with words like “please,” “I’m sorry,” and “thank you,” can have a positive impact on any relationship.
Being appreciative of relevant feedback from people who truly have your interest at heart and not rushing off to react to it, stands for constructiveness in your relationships. As you take your time to absorb the underlying points of the feedback and sort out your feelings and thoughts, you enhance your chances of coming up with a productive way of dealing with the feedback. Making positive adjustments based on a genuine helpful feedback demonstrates to the feedback giver, that you value him or her and the attendant opinions. Thus, you strengthen the footing of the relationship.
Relationship management principles acknowledge that the level of trust in a relationship is crucial to deepening the connection in it. Amongst others, trust is built on open communication, willingness to share, consistency in words, actions and behaviour over time and reliability in following through on the agreements of the relationship. For a good purpose that builds up your relationship management skills, be the first to intentionally share some tidbits of information about yourself. Inquire of the other person what his or her idea of building trust is, and then listen attentively. Asking speaks of a care that fosters trust and deepens a relationship.
Increasing your accessibility in a relationship perks it up. The notion of being valued and respected is what you nurture in the mind of your interactant when you do this. Toning down hierarchy in any relationship and fostering communication in all directions helps to deepen it.
Expressing anger appropriately implies sharing it in a manner that actually improves the relationship somehow, a manner that also values the preferences of others. This attitude does not sound a hare-brained scheme to one who is interested in improving his relationship management skills. A coach’s stern feedback that grabs the attention of his players and motivates them into greater constructive activity is a striking example of this phenomenon. To become aware of your anger and to define it in varying degrees, from the smallest value to the highest, will help you to express your anger appropriately and constructively, and at the right time, without alienating others. Giving off too much anger or expressing it at the wrong time alienates and desensitises others to your feelings.
To manage your emotions, you need to be aware of them first. Seeing things from the other person’s perspective sets you to work at taking due cognisance of his or her preferences. If the body language of your interactant reveals that you are frustrating to him or her, then, it may be time to bring in some balance into your interaction, a balance that recognises the preferences of the other party. Such a balance may suggest allowing for more freedom and independence in the relationship for the sake of harmony. Acknowledging and celebrating joint accomplishments boosts the energy of a relationship.
Acknowledging, not trying to stifle other people’s feelings is a great way of deepening and managing relationships. This gesture is quite confirming of others as unique, worthy beings with a right to feel their own feelings. Consequently, the statement “I’m sorry to see you upset; is there anything I can do?” is more constructive than “ well, work will help you to free the mind of your worries; give it a try?”
