The Importance of Effective Communication for Women in Various Social Settings

Women communicating during a workshop at a conference

The Significance of Effective Communication for Women

Effective communication is one of those topics, that I always use as an example for people inherently mentioning it as a skill on their resume and in interviews, but not really understanding what it means. This includes not being able to identify when they are terrible at it. Being terrible at communication does not mean you are not a good orator, or that your vocabulary is lacking. It also doesn't mean you aren't capable of comprehending what is said to you. However, it can mean that there is a lack of understanding different communication styles, communication within different settings, or leveraging the appropriate communication strategy and implementation for the right outcome. It's actually an easy fix, but only when you are open to identifying gaps of improvement and expanding your mind to make room for new learnings and skills.

In a previous post, "The Importance of Social Relationships in the Quest of Achieving Healthy Life Balance", we highlighted the importance of social relationships, their types, and related it back to communicating effectively to ensure all parties are on the same page. This left us, over at Tech & Toast, thinking maybe we should highlight "what" effective communication means and its importance to women, so that when we are having those difficult conversations we are able to show up as our best and most productive self.

This does not mean you will immediately become the best communicator or fundamentally change your social relationships overnight. To be honest, I am fluent in sarcasm and have a wierd sense of humor that I like to help people to understand, rather than change. However, understanding the fundamentals ensures that I am able to remain objective, unbiased and notice when the problem is me verse blaming someone else. This also does not equate to being incapable of ensuring others show up as their best self. It does however, require me to make disclaimers periodically. Hella introspection here, maybe we'll cover that at a later time.

Understanding Effective Communication

In true fashion, before we begin a discussion, let's understand the topic of focus by defining what it means to us. Previous experience has taught me the importance of this first hand. On a former team of mine, it served us best to create a virtual glossary of terminology to ensure we were all referencing the same things within a similar state of mind. In this instance, communication is the sending and receiving of communication or the exchange of information or news. Typically in a request and response manner, where the request(s) can be of many formats. For instance, I can ask you a question and you respond with an answer. Or I can be the owner of a newspaper, where, due to understanding that my target audience wants the latest news and I respond to a need with a weekly or monthly newsletter, without them having to iterate on the request phase.

Being effective is successfully achieving some outcome. When communicating effectively, we want to successfully communicate some information, requested through some "request format". As simple as this sounds, it does not always immediately resonate or sometimes "stinking thinking" kicks in, and we overthink the matter at hand. This can also be impacted by standards created by society in combination with there being a difference of conveying messaging through verbal and non-verbal communication. As a refresher;

Verbal Communication

Verbal communications consists of the strategies used to convey direct and concise messaging, by using your words. This includes practices such as:

Implementing active listening
Practicing direct communications through vocabulary selection
Assessing the appropriate time and method for addressing conflict
Discerning when to speak in first, second, or third person.
Practicing confidence through tonal selections

Non-Verbal Communication

Non-Verbal communication uses various physical cues to convey a message in isolation from or in combination with verbal messages. This includes practices such as:

Taking into consideration to how we engage through physical aspects such as hand gestures and posture. This also includes the level of eye contact.
Being in control of facial expressions
Aligning communications with the appropriate clothing attire. This can often positively influence our own internal level of confidences, improving chances of successful communication.

These are not the only things to consider. There's plenty more. It is also not about what is the right or wrong answer but rather, how we implement a combinations of practices to successfully convey information, resulting in effectively communicating a message back to the requestor or target audience.

Communication in Different Social Settings

In our previous post, we discuss the importance of understanding different types of relationships and make small mention of different social settings. In this section, we'll dive into understanding the difference between social settings and how specific practices can help you to convey your messaging in the appropriate manner for your target audience.

Effective Communication in the Workplace

When immediately thinking about communication in the workplace, the mind might shift towards how we draft an email, the technical team working with the business team and a host of other scenarios. Although each is important, it is even more important to consider areas such as how we:

Advocate for ourselves.
Advocate for direct reports or individuals we might be providing mentorship to.
How we communicate with colleagues vs. teammates.
Communication with lateral employees verse communicating information vertically to upper management.

I'm positive there are other scenarios worth mentioning, however, the goal here is to be able to identify these scenarios and then determine what practices and methods are best suited for you to get your messaging across. In some instances, you may have gained enough visibility and built a strong enough rapport to where none of it even matters anymore. If this is you, then its nice to refresh on these concepts so you can better enable those around you. If this is not you, then utilize some of these practices until you get there.

Considerations for successful workplace interactions

Clarity and conciseness: Ensuring messages are clear and to the point.
Active listening: Demonstrating engagement through listening.
Maintain eye contact: Ensuring
Feedback mechanisms: Creating opportunities for giving and receiving constructive feedback.

Communication in Dating

Working in remote team settings over the past few years has afforded me not only the opportunity to assess communication styles a bit more, but raised awareness of how some practices in the workplace can be incorporated in personal relationships for improved communication. If you ever want to hear about this, ask me when you meet me.

The complexities of communication in dating scenarios

During the initial stages of getting to know someone can bring about many complexities. Just because you make it to later stages, which might result in engagement or marriage, does not necessarily mean it will become easier. The journey is always about the amount of growth both parties experience in combination with growth in a similar direction. Therefore, its critical to understand some of these complexities and how to reduce the chances of turning into something more complicated. Complexities that can arise, due to ineffective communication are:

Confusion surrounding where the relationship's status.
Confusion surrounding do's and don'ts, lacking respect for one another's boundaries.
Missing out on your person or life partner, due to investing in a misaligned one.
Conveying the incorrect information, degrading the effectiveness of the intended outcome.
Being confused and manipulated, or taking advantage of your partner.

Key strategies for successful romantic interactions.

Honesty and openness: Building trust through transparency.
Non-verbal cues: Understanding body language and emotional signals.
Setting boundaries: Clearly communicating personal limits.

Other Social Relationships and Communication

The value of communication in maintaining friendships and social connections is unexplainable, if connections are near and dear to you. Depending on the length of social relationships, can depend on the level of intimacy between both parties. Most individuals limit intimacy to physical encounters or attraction, when it typically exists without physical encounters. Therefore, it is possible to have a strong level of intimacy with individuals you are not romantically involved with. I'd err on the side of saying, communication in this scenario is as delicate as it is in romantic relationships.

In social relationships where the level of intimacy lacks similar depth or is non-existent, there still exists a level of care. For some individuals, this might not be true, but that is a separate topic of discussion.

Best practices for effective communication in social settings

Effective communication within social relationships that lack romantic undertones, its important to maintain:

Empathy: Understanding others' perspectives.
Conflict resolution: Addressing disagreements with compassion. My favorite motto is agreeing to disagree.
Flexibility: Adapting communication styles to suit different friends and situations. Similar to technical systems build for a target audience, your friends will also have a varying set of requirements.

Neither of these should be mistaken for removing your boundaries, or pouring into cups that do not or refuse to pour into yours. The focus is on being aware of how each person's requirements differ to understand how you can serve them best.

Communication in Meetings

The importance of effective communication in the workplace verses in meetings is also an important aspect to highlight. I'm an avid fan of culture, and have an eye for picking up on organizational culture. This does not mean you will always agree or align with the culture. However, being able to do so will afford you the opportunity of accurately identifying an orgs expectations and whether or not they align with your personal sentiments.

In some organizations, their exists "micro-cultures" that extend to a team or group of teams (business groups) of which, they may come up with individual rules. In more established organizations, you'll see a lot more of this enabling employees to maintain diverse perspectives within the boundaries of the organization's values.

Strategies for making meetings productive

Preparation: Organizing thoughts and materials beforehand. This includes setting an agenda and only inviting necessary decision-makers, when applicable.
Participation: Encouraging contributions from all attendees. You should adopt practices that encourage the opionions and perspectives of the quiet contributors. Merely asking people to "speak up" is often not a sound practice, and it does not align with the values of an organization that is committed to integrated individuals who require special accommodations.
Summarizing: Recapping discussions to ensure clarity and understanding. As a best practice, it's beneficial to send this recap to attendees, especially relevant decision makers.

These are not the only considerations, however a few that will ensure you are off to a good start.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is sometimes referred to as Emotional Quotient (EQ). By definition, being intelligent is possessing the ability to learn, understand, reason, and adapt to new situations. The better you are at this in many contexts, the higher your intelligence quotient (IQ). If we center this around managing our emotions, emotional intelligence is our ability to understand and manage our own emotions, while learning and adapting, and in some instances, influencing the emotions in another person. The better we are at this, the higher our EQ.

In Non-Verbal Communication section of this post, we mention physical queues when communicating. Emotional Intelligence plays a role in our ability to discern between different communication styles that use varying communication queues to send a message. In any social setting, this is an important concept to creating and maintaining healthy relationships.

Developing emotional intelligence for better interactions

Emotional Intelligence is not something that you can just read about and automatically become better. It's something that requires active attention and implementation. Some things that will help to improve for better interactions with others is:

Self-awareness: Recognizing one’s own emotions. Similar to the first step being admitting there is a problem, the first step is recognition. We need to be able to recognize how/what we feel to better understand.
Empathy: Being attuned to the emotions of others. This does not mean you tolerate what others are feeling, but are able to accurately pick up on what they might be feeling to better guide your responses.
Regulating emotions: Managing one’s responses in conversations.

Emotional Intelligence can shift into a sensitive discussion. There are plenty of non-visible reasons a person is not able to communicate the way we expect them to. This can easily shift towards a disability discrimination violation, in the event things are not taken into consideration or handled appropriate. Therefore, tread this topic of discussion with caution and acclimate yourself with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In the event you feel you have been discriminated against, you can file a complaint with the ADA.

Building Rapport with Communication

An important aspect of maintaining healthy relationships in any social setting, is the ability to build a rapport within various settings. This involves establishing a trusting relationship that is built on mutual respect and genuine interest, relevant to the context of the relationship desired. In other words, interest and respect is dependent on the social aspects of the type of relationship and determined by the parties establishing the connection.

Techniques for establishing connections

There is no one stop framework for this, however some things to consider are:

Finding common ground: Developing creative and genuine ways to identify shared interests or experiences.
Open body language: Using gestures that invite dialogue according to the social relationship type.
Authenticity: Being genuine in interactions versus being strategic and tactical. Showing up as yourself is a full proof way to ensure your relationship is built off of what is meaningful to you.

Showing up as yourself does not mean you can't wear makeup or add extensions to your hair. Nor does it mean you cannot get that cool hair cut or wear that fitted cap. It means to be whoever it is you are when you are most happiest.

Handling Criticism and Feedback

As with anything, we don't know everything. Therefore, its important to be accepting of constructive criticism. In my personal opinion, not all criticism and feedback is productive or correct. However, that's for you to discern and just be sure that you maintain an open and objective mindset so that you are able to receive the messaging that is for you, and productive to your growth.

Strategies for effectively dealing with feedback

There's no full proof method for this in the context of social relationships, but consider the following:

Flexibility and adaptability: Ensure you are prepared to receive and make adjustments to new information.
Learning mindset: Use feedback as an opportunity for growth and development.
Seeking clarity: Before deciding feedback or criticism is not productive for you, ask probing questions to make sure you understand feedback fully.

Best Practices for Achieving Communication Success

Successful communication is relevant to the context of the setting. It can only be achieved through effectively communicating a message through the relevant communication channels, using the right strategies. Our ability to successfully do this is rooted in the ability to use aforementioned practices to assess the scenario at hand and implement the right strategies and practices to see things through. However, we can still use practical guidelines to ensure that when we achieve effectively communication, we do not regress back to communicating ineffectively and we are able to continuously iterate and improve on our capabilities.

The importance of continuous practice and improvement

Role-playing scenarios: Simulating real-life interactions. We often equate this to interviewing for a new role. This can also be applied in other social settings.
Seeking mentorship: Learning from experienced communicators that show up as where you want your ideal self to be.
Utilizing communication communities: Joining networks for support and learning.

Productivity Apps and Communities for Improving Communication

As Tech & Toast, it's important to end this discussion with a few productivity apps to get enable you to improve on the subject at hand. Please understand that this does not mean this is the only or best solution, it means, there are individuals that have identified a need and came up with a solution. If none align with you, then I hope they prompt ideas and exploration of what is right for you. If you are in the know of something that did work for you, feel free to comment or reach out to us so we can take it into consideration.

Recommendations for efficient communication management

Task management apps: Organizing communication tasks and follow-ups.
Collaboration tools: Facilitating team communication and project management.
Feedback platforms: Collecting and managing input from peers and colleagues.

Sharpen your communication skills with these apps

MindNode: An app to make sense of your ideas and flesh out initial thoughts.
Wordbook: An app to enhance your vocabulary repository.
Orai: An app to help improve public speaking through gamified lessons and capabilities to practice speaking.

Visit these communities for additional resources

Communication Community - A community established by speech pathologist, providing developmental and inclusive resources to improve inclusivity in communication.
Meetup - Search for communities in your local area dedicated to helping individuals improve communication through practice.
American Speech-Language-Hearing Associtation - Visit this website if your communication is limited due to a disability, and you want to learn more about certified speech language pathologist.

Conclusion

Communication plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of our social relationships. It effects how we create, maintain and disengage. The more skilled we are at identifying our communication gaps, addressing those gaps or advocating for personal limitations, the more we are able to grow our communication capabilities. This will help us to make decisions that improve social relationships.

As women navigating personal relationships, in some cases managing children, and attempting to thrive in sometimes male dominated industries, it sometimes requires more "code-switching" than we want to deal with. Add to that, the sensitive ideals that we sometimes adopt due to standards created by society. This is not an easy feat. However, the ability to take inventory of our own limitations will drastically improve how we communicate in various settings. Most individuals will equate this to learning how to "be polite" or "politically correct". This is not that. There are some instances where we have to step outside of our comfort zone because there is an underlying expectation that we are always supposed to be "sweet". Knowing when to turn it on and off, will serve us best in the long run.

I challenge you to take a moment in the near future, to list a few of your communication limitations and establish a game plan to address them. Thanks so much for stopping by!