Top 10 Communication Skills for a Successful Career

Do you want your career to skyrocket? Do you have groundbreaking ideas but often hesitate due to the fear of criticism? Here are The Top 10 Communication skills for a successful career that you can apply in your office and life altogether 

Human potential is immense. There is nothing you can not build with time and consistent effort. Let’s dive right into these communication tools for workplace success. 

Top 10 Communication Skills for a Successful Career 

Here we target both interpersonal and interpersonal skills to provide you with the suited skillset of communication to fuel your career 

1. Active listening

According to the author of 7 habits of highly effective people Stephen Covey, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” 

We all listen to things constantly throughout the day, but if you reflect on the things you remember, there are only a few, and when these few things were said, you were knowingly or unknowingly practicing active listening. Active listening is the art of being attentive and going to the grassroots level to decipher best what is being said. To enhance this skill, you can ask open-ended questions and ask for clarification when you are not sure what is being said.

2. Oral communication

You might have the most fantastic ideas in the room, but if you aren’t efficient at articulating them, there is a high possibility the organization will not enforce your ideas. To become good at weaving words, try to enhance your oral communication skills try to apply these tips 

• Be sure about what you want to convey and how you want the other person to perceive it
• Set the mood and use the correct tone
• Practice in front of the mirror if it is an important event that might require practice
• Know your audience!
• Be ready with answers. 

Example: You are heading the fabrics department of a fashion designing company and want to communicate about this important project the company has bagged and how the entire fabrics department needs to do better this quarter to lock the deal. 

You enter the room. Remember, you are the one delegating the task, so stand straight, look into the eyes of your audience and try to put forward the task in detail. No matter how precisely you would have done it, always, I repeat, always ask questions as there are always people who might be listening but not actively listening! 

Try to cut back on the ‘umn,’ ‘i guess.’ Believe in yourself and take it in stride.

3. Written communication

Since time immemorial, written communication has been a key factor in communicating professionally in office quarters, from memorandums to notices to emails. You should, without any doubt, invest to enhance your written communication. 

For this, you might want to make the written piece

• Grammatically correct

Some might let grammatical mistakes slide but most of the time once detected leave a wrong impression on the reader. You can use online tools for the detection of these errors like Grammarly, Hemingway (free)

• Clear and concise

Unless the information communicated is about your anecdotes and whereabouts, cut out the parts which are not necessary.

Communicate clearly with details about the task at hand, and once written, ‘cut the unnecessary parts!’

• Adding the human interest value suited to the information being communicated
• Leave the acronyms for unofficial business
• Learn your formats!

4. Empathy

“Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” – Barack Obama.

Empathy is a quality people inherently possess and comes in handy for any successful career.

Here are a few tips to enhance empathy

• Cultivate a sense of curiosity
• Examine when you get biased and why
• Find a balance between head and heart
• Talk to new people

Example of how empathy can help you in achieving your career objecting 

• Your colleague has an important presentation today, but they fall sick, and they ask you to cover for them during the meeting. You can either tell them to stop being a baby, which absolutely is arrogant, or you can put yourself in their shoes and help. 

• This will present you as a helpful individual who people like, and later, when you need help, you will have your people there by your side! 

5. Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and science of maintaining peaceful relations between individuals or groups.

Using Diplomacy appropriately will help you improve negotiations, strengthen relationships with others and boost rapport.

How to be a good diplomat?

• Sharpen Analytical skills
• Pay attention to detail
• Be compassionate while conveying messages
• Learn more about negotiation tactics

6. Team building

Team building is the skill of putting together individuals contributing to the organization into a cohesive team of highly efficient persons who are happy to be a part of the group.

A good team helps achieve tasks and produce output efficiently. Hence the one who builds it will build rapport and be noticed by employers!

Some pointers good team leaders use

• Give Incentives of appreciation 
• Create a competitive environment 
• Give constructive criticism

7. Confidence

In ‘How to Live Before You Die,’ a motivational speech given by Apple Computer and Pixar co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, he mentioned You have to trust something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever – because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”

In any career, confidence will help you be heard and give you credibility because if you can not believe in yourself, making others trust you is improbable. 

Confidence can be added by

Posture

Don’t fidget, slouch or look down while talking to someone but look them in the eye and speak your truth ( Caution- Look, don’t stare, you don’t want to make the other person uncomfortable.)

 Knowledge

Keep learning and researching. With knowledge comes confidence, as the more knowledge you gather, there will be fewer circumstances where the person you are communicating with leaves you perplexed.

8. Acceptance

 A good communicator knows that right and wrong are perspectives, and before coming to any conclusions, they should try to put their feet in the shoes of the person they judge.

You should be flexible, accepting, and open-minded towards people, situations, and circumstances.

Be willing to ask questions about things you disagree with so you can yield more positive outcomes. 

9. Wittiness

Being witty is being clever and fun together, just in the right amounts. There will be times when you and your team might be in a high-stress environment. In such scenarios, your wit would come in handy. Even when it comes to negotiations, the one who outwits usually gets the upper hand.

How to develop your wits?

• Practice Doing Things You Are Good At, Faster. 
• Be an active player in the organization.
• Meditate and stay cool
• Get creative. Maybe try playing an instrument.
• Give Your Brain a Mental Workout by giving yourself small challenges like finishing a book in one day or brainstorming on an idea that was stuck in your head for weeks!

10. Positive Attitude

Last but not least, people like to have someone optimistic around them, someone who wouldn’t tell them how it is impossible but who will “believe,” like, in The Matrix, Morpheus believed in Neo.

Things positive people do (A list)

• Manage rejection
• Are not resentful 
• Cherish small pleasures of life
• Compliment 
• Operate with enthusiasm

How to apply these skills for a Successful Career 

• Utilizing them in your CV, Cover letter, and Career Objective section

You can do this by researching the company you are applying to and identifying the hard and soft skills required. 

You can then use them.

You can use anecdotes of how you utilized your communication skills for problem-solving and accomplishing tasks. You can use the star technique for the same.

Example – “My skill at Team building was demonstrated in how consistently I meet and beat deadlines without burning out my team, which helped me raise the quarterly efficiency of my team by 15%.”

• Interview process

Show! Don’t tell. You can showcase these in your job interview as it gives you a platform to showcase your communication skills for a successful career. Research, Prepare and Practice before any Job Interview. Be confident and don’t answer without thinking.

• Communication in Workplace

Once hired in the organization, it is even more essential to utilize these skills every day so you can leave a long-lasting impact and emerge as a true leader having a successful career. 

Key Takeaways

• Did you get it? Flaunt it

Don’t forget to highlight your communication skills in your resume, interview, or workspace.

• Be captain cool

May it be a task you might be unable to crack or a negotiation you’re struggling with. Remember, hard work and consistent effort pay off!

• Keep learning and developing your communication skills.

You might be the master of communication but remember there is always room for development, so keep yourself up to date.