10 Essential interpersonal skills for managers

Success in company management is driven by interpersonal skills. Manager needs interpersonal skills to improve communication with their direct reports. Having outstanding people skills can be advantageous for your team as a manager. A successful manager needs to be proficient in both decision-making and communication. Your ability to connect and communicate effectively with the people you lead and serve will be crucial to your success, whether you are a freshly appointed manager or have held the position for a while.

Face-to-face exchanges of thoughts, ideas, sentiments, and emotions between two or more persons constitute interpersonal communication. Both verbal and nonverbal aspects of interpersonal communication are included. Strong interpersonal skills are an asset in the workplace. This is because they can aid you in navigating complexity, change, and daily duties. In this article, we discuss essential interpersonal skills for managers and their importance.

Related: Skills of a manager: Ultimate guide

What are interpersonal skills?

When interacting and communicating with others, you rely on your interpersonal skills. They span a range of situations in which cooperation and communication are crucial.

These skills include the capacity for interpersonal interaction and communication. They are frequently referred to as people skills, and they frequently combine your personality qualities with the ways you have developed to deal with particular social circumstances. Effective interpersonal skills can benefit you during your development in your profession. 

Examples of interpersonal skills

Interpersonal skills are soft skills that are easily transferable across positions and sectors. They are valued because they contribute to positive work environments and help maintain an efficient workflow. Here is a list of some the examples of interpersonal skills:

• Communication
• Active listening
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Dependability
• Motivation
• Flexibility
• Patience
• Empathy
• Responsibility
• Assertiveness
• Emotional intelligence
• Self-Awareness

Importance of interpersonal skills for managers

According to a study by the Australian Institute of Management Education and Training, they found interpersonal skills are the most important traits for effective leadership. Interpersonal skills can help you succeed in your job by helping you understand other people and adjusting your approach to work effectively together. As a manager, this is key to ensuring cohesive teamwork and collaboration are maintained.  

For establishing and keeping genuine human connections at work, interpersonal skills are crucial. Therefore, those with effective interpersonal communication abilities can create wholesome working relationships with their co-workers and perform significantly better as a team. They give managers the ability to utilize the company’s people resources and inspire workers to produce greater outcomes.

The following are key reasons why interpersonal skills for managers are important:

Related: Essential Management Skills

Personal qualities promote effective communication to boost productivity

Effective communication is the foundation of every successful business, and to be a good communicator, you must possess strong interpersonal skills. Additionally, you must establish relationships with your co-workers so that ideas, information, and skills can be shared. Each employee ought to accept and appreciate the perspectives of their co-workers. This sort of communication enables more efficient service delivery, improved task management, and on-time completion of homework. 

Instantaneous work feedback

In most organizations, you would require an open and supportive feedback loop to operate well. which will react to influences from both within and outside the body effectively.

Tell me it’s just ongoing communication between a task-giver and a task-completer. The individual performing the task will first solicit input as he goes along. Then, the manager will either let the worker know that they are succeeding or that the right adjustments are required. This is a never-ending loop or cycle.

Sometimes there can be some initial breakdown. There will be a cause for this collapse. These motives consist of:

• Neither of them (the task giver nor taker) has successfully approached the other.
• One of them is not prepared to start a conversation.
• ineffective management

The boss authorizing the assignment and not offering feedback afterward is a very detrimental and all-too-common behavior, especially if the employee has before asked for it and been denied. Nothing is worse than spending hours on a task just to have the boss come along and ruin it. The effectiveness, morality, and productivity of the work will all suffer as a result.

Real-time feedback is therefore crucial in developing the fundamentals of interpersonal skills in the workplace.

Building opportunities for employees

By establishing connections with superiors and co-workers, you will be able to take advantage of more lucrative chances at work and in your area of interest. For instance, if you have a good impression of your manager, they might recommend you or perhaps promote you to a higher position with additional responsibilities and rewards. Of course, this is a great benefit for your professional development.

Building social awareness

Your interpersonal abilities attest to your concern for the welfare of both your clients and employees. You are working to win their trust and allegiance. Your ability to function in a difficult social setting can be helped by having a strong sense of awareness and emotional intelligence. Your ability to think strategically will also help you make the finest decisions and assessments on crucial workplace issues. As a result, it emphasizes how crucial interpersonal skills are on the job.

Maintain fruitful relationships in the workplace

Interpersonal abilities are most successful, beneficial, and fulfilling when they support healthy relationships. Therefore, it is essential to cultivate close ties at work while maintaining these interactions within the bounds of professionalism. Therefore, interpersonal skills are crucial in the workplace even while only maintaining ties.

As a result of various elements, including continuity, follow-up, and ongoing empathy, maintaining such connections can be much harder than establishing them. Making them real is therefore the best method to maintain intimate relationships at work.

Develop leadership skills

Every discussion of interpersonal skills in the workplace stresses the significance of these abilities for effective management and leadership. This is because a great leader can foster interpersonal interactions, create trust, and communicate clearly. In contrast, a disengaged leader will ultimately lose, and helpful team members will probably abandon ship sooner rather than later. Production will be lost in this situation, and the remaining workers will be given new positions.

Related: Leadership Competencies: A Complete Guide

10 interpersonal skills for managers

Practically every part of the business is impacted by interpersonal skills. For instance, when you engage in a negotiation, your interpersonal abilities are put to use. It helps you win over a client or close a commercial deal. It will also help you develop strong team dynamics and collaborative relationships. These manager-specific interpersonal skills can also help you develop as a leader. Below is a list of 10 interpersonal skills for managers you should develop:

1. Communication

One of the most crucial interpersonal abilities for a manager is communication. All effective leaders need to acquire communication skills since they are critical interpersonal skills or qualities. Good communication is a quality that effective leaders must demonstrate. Poor communicators frequently choose the command and control leadership approach, which is only useful in particular circumstances. 

Be clear in your instructions and expectations. Be succinct and clear. Don’t use 1,000 words to convey something that only needs 100. Be cautious with your silence as well. Even more than verbal communication, nonverbal communication has a lot to say. During negotiations, interviews, training sessions, and team meetings, your body language, hand gestures, and facial emotions can convey a lot.

What is remembered about you is less what you say and more how you express it. Keep your cool and put on your game face at all times. Avoid losing your cool or becoming upset in front of your subordinates. You can get some unfavorable nicknames at work.

The communication skills for managers can either be:

• Non-verbal communication
• Public speaking
• Verbal communication

Related: Important communications skills for managers

2. Active listening

It entails paying attention to people to learn from them and interact with them. While conversing with others, active listeners refrain from being disruptive. This can entail putting aside or turning off laptops or other electronic devices while listening, as well as asking and responding to questions as necessary.

Instead of just answering, listen to understand. Ask yourself what you can learn from each conversation you have by paying close attention to the other person. Tell your team members that you are listening to them. This will keep them interested and encourage them to offer feedback when you ask for it. Some of the key elements of active listening for managers include:

• Focus
• Inquiry

3. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence abbreviated to EQ is the capacity to recognize, harness, and control your own emotions to reduce stress, improve communication, sympathize with others, overcome obstacles, and diffuse conflict. You can develop stronger relationships, perform well at work, and reach your professional and personal objectives with the aid of emotional intelligence. It can assist you in establishing a connection with your emotions, putting your intentions into practice, and choosing what is most important to you.

Four characteristics are frequently used to characterize emotional intelligence:

• Self-management: You can restrain impulsive thoughts, feelings, and actions, regulate your emotions in healthy ways, take the initiative, keep your word, and adjust to changing circumstances.
• Self-awareness: You are aware of your feelings and how they influence your actions and thinking. You are confident in yourself and are aware of your talents and flaws.
• You are socially aware and empathic: You can discern emotional indicators, comprehend the needs and worries of others, feel at ease in social situations, and comprehend the power relationships in a team or organization.
• Relationship management: You can create and sustain positive relationships, communicate effectively, motivate and influence people, collaborate effectively with others, and handle conflict.

Even though emotional intelligence is a combination of interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, it is an important interpersonal skill to possess as a manager.

4. Conflict Management

You have to resolve disputes in your role as manager. Conflicts may result from personality conflicts or disagreements regarding corporate objectives. Any team you manage will contain a mix of characters. They can occasionally become too strong for one another due to their disparate backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses.

When a disagreement arises, you must step in and attempt to resolve it. It could be safer to train and teach people how to solve difficulties on their own, though. You will gain time by doing this. In any team, disagreements will inevitably arise, but they can be expected and planned for. When managing a quarrel, you must pay attention to both sides and offer workable answers. 

Utilize algorithms such as shadow match to predict when conflicts between employees may arise. Depending on the personality of the team members, the software tells you how compatible a team is.

Conflict management is successful when creative and diplomatic solutions are used. One of a manager’s most important interpersonal abilities is the ability to think quickly under pressure. You will be required to use creative problem-solving to arrive at a solution. Examples of some conflict management solutions include:

• Conflict resolution
• Criticism
• Counseling
• Mediating
• Problem-solving

5. Leadership

Effective decision-making is a crucial interpersonal skill in leadership. Empathy and patience are only two of the key interpersonal skills that effective leaders need while making judgments. Managers and lone contributors can both benefit from leadership abilities. Employers reward employees who show initiative to accomplish shared objectives in any position.

A manager’s responsibilities go beyond leading the team. To achieve the best results, you must motivate and inspire your staff. It is a successful strategy for motivating employees.

You will frequently be interacting with unique individuals. Every employee has a unique personality. They also come from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds. Therefore, a general strategy might not be effective for all of them.

Knowing the people you work with will help you gain a crucial understanding of their motivational factors. No employee will blindly follow your example. Both emotionally appeal to them and use logic to persuade them. Inform the group’s members that you are here to bring about change. Pay attention to employee complaints and implement the improvements. 

The ability to inspire and uplift others is a prerequisite for effective leadership. Some of these elements include:

• Encouraging
• Inspiring trust
• Instructing
• Management
• Mentoring
• Motivation
• Positive reinforcement

Related: Important Leadership Skills for Managers

6. Assertiveness

In the training of social and communication skills, assertiveness is a quality that is frequently mentioned. Being assertive involves being able to defend your rights and the rights of others in a calm, confident manner without being either aggressive or passively accepting what is “wrong.”

This doesn’t imply you have to act like a dictator; rather, it means you should be able to express yourself while still showing your team members respect. It’s for them to recognize that they have a capable manager that they can trust to lead the ship.

Being tough when necessary yet remaining polite at all times is the secret to being forceful and keeping respect as a manager. Assertive people may make their points without offending others or causing themselves distress.

7. Feedback

For a variety of reasons, feedback is crucial. The simplest and most obvious justification is that you need your staff to constantly perform at a high level. In a leadership position, it’s critical to be able to offer constructive criticism. Informing your staff of their strengths and areas for development is very beneficial to both you and the business. 

If your team members understand that you are giving them constructive criticism and that you are doing it while retaining a pleasant attitude, they will eventually be more likely to accept it. Being positive is essential in all circumstances.

A manager must give candid feedback to staff members and subordinates. It fulfills numerous functions for the business. The first and most obvious reason is that you want all of your staff to constantly perform at a high level. The second reason is that it highlights your staff’s accomplishments. A feedback report subsequently advises staff members on what needs to be changed.

Your team colleagues should realize, nevertheless, that you’re giving them constructive criticism. Don’t be needlessly nasty while disguising it as criticism. Managers and bosses frequently chastise their employees under the guise of constructive criticism. This strategy causes more damage than good. Your feedback should uplift and inspire your colleagues, not belittle them.

Keep in mind that being unpleasant does not equate to being honest, and being sympathetic does not equate to being weak. On the other hand, providing constructive criticism lovingly promotes advancement and professional growth. 

Therefore, be truthful and provide specific suggestions for improvement in the feedback. You’ll observe that your staff members will be less defensive and more open to it.

8. Trust and Honesty

When a crisis arises, try to be as open and honest with your staff as you can. Everyone will turn to you for direction, therefore it’s up to you to establish their trust through your words and deeds. In the same vein, show your employees that you trust them by refraining from micromanaging them.

Confidence is necessary for managers and the people on their teams. Even if they had confidence in you as a teammate, you must now earn it as their manager. You must motivate them and confidently and sensibly hold them accountable.

When dealing with subpar performance, the new manager must focus on the behavior rather than the individual. To build essential confidence, you must authentically engage your team while still having faith in them. You’ll be able to create honesty and trust thanks to it.

Always be reasonable and honor your commitments to your staff. You will lose your employees’ trust if you constantly tell them untrue things. Give your staff an appropriate amount of time and space to do the duties. Don’t follow them around every hour to see how far they’ve traveled. The relationship’s trust will suffer as a result. If they do require assistance, though, offer guidance rather than micromanaging to aid them. Help them strengthen their problem-solving abilities.

Encourage your employee to take calculated risks. When staff members decide to challenge themselves by taking on a new project, assist them in the subsequent phases. Furthermore, give them your unwavering support whenever they suggest a novel idea or ask for help developing their skill set. 

Describe the reasoning and supporting evidence used to arrive at decisions and conclusions. When you conceal your decision-making process, your workers will lose trust in you. It conveys the idea that your decisions are capricious and authoritarian. Instead, put your attention on talking clearly and openly.

Keep in mind that trust doesn’t just happen. It’s about demonstrating to your staff your value and confidence in them.

9.  Compassion and Empathy

How well a worker comprehends the needs and emotions of others is a measure of their emotional intelligence. To build a productive workplace, employers may choose to hire sympathetic or compassionate workers. Compassion and complement self-awareness. These abilities allow you to comprehend the emotions and thoughts of others. Being able to perceive things from someone else’s point of view promotes trust and helps people feel like real persons rather than just employee IDs.

Since interpersonal skills are all about people, it will be difficult to connect with them on a deep level and get the greatest performance out of them if you are unable to comprehend others, their viewpoints, and any potential struggles they may be facing.

Consider life from the viewpoint of others by putting yourself in their position. That is the main goal of empathy. It’s crucial to have empathy if you want to get along with everyone at work. Some of the gestures to show empathy include:

• Caring
• Compassion
• Diplomacy
• Diversity
• Helping others
• Kindness
• Patience
• Respect
• Sensitivity
• Sympathy

10. Motivation

A successful manager needs to have the ability to understand what makes other people tick. They can effectively manage and lead their personnel because they are aware of their motivations and underlying desires. However, motivation is not just about money!

Related: Benefits of motivated employees

How to improve interpersonal skills

Making a purposeful plan might help you swiftly advance even though practicing interpersonal skills as you deal with people regularly may seem effortless. Think about the following suggestions to enhance your interpersonal abilities:

• Participate in seminars or online classes. There are numerous workshops, online courses, and films on interpersonal skill-building techniques. While many are cost-free, some are chargeable.
• Look for chances to establish relationships. You might think about joining a group if you work from home or do not have many other opportunities to develop interpersonal skills. This could be a group that is associated with your jobs, such as networking or industry-specific groups, or it could just be a collection of people who have similar interests.
• Think carefully about how you can make your encounters better. Review your interactions with others and think about how you may have interacted more skilfully. This could have been expressed by your words, actions, or body language.
• Seek constructive criticism from friends or co-workers you can trust. Having a third-party opinion regarding your ability level and specific areas for improvement is beneficial. Ask close friends or dependable co-workers to offer constructive comments on your interpersonal communication abilities.
• Seek out other instances of satisfying human interaction. Observing how others use interpersonal skills can be a useful learning tool as well. Watch how people interact well around you, then emulate similar traits in your relationships.
• Look for a mentor. Asking for advice on how to develop your interpersonal skills and advance professionally from someone you respect, admire, and trust may be a very successful learning strategy.
• Set objectives. Setting objectives for yourself can help give your learning some structure and increase the effectiveness of your learning by letting you know when and how you have improved enough.
• Controlling emotions: Being excessively emotional is not permitted at work. You must therefore control your emotions at all times. To keep the workplace sane, it is better. But it stands to reason that, as a person, you would experience mood swings. Nobody can maintain a consistent mood. All of these emotions anger, depression, and irritation are a part of us. However, you must always maintain your composure at work. Never use your emotions to intimidate or make your co-workers feel uneasy.
• Assertiveness: At work, you can’t become too emotional. Because of this, you should control your emotions. The goal is to keep workers’ minds in check at work. But it stands to reason that you would experience mood swings because you are a human. There is no such thing as a steady mood. We all experience despair, anger, and irritability. You must always maintain your composure at work, though. Never let your emotions endanger or put your co-workers in a bad situation.
• Maintaining relationships: When you get along with your co-0workers, life is much simpler. You spend most of your time with these people. So make an effort to engage with them and establish a connection. Maintaining connections with supervisors and co-workers might help you advance in your job.
• Give compliments: Find the positive qualities in everyone and be sure to compliment them. A person’s day can be greatly improved by receiving compliments. It instantly boosts confidence and helps to lift spirits. Also, keep in mind that if you brighten someone else’s day, you will also be in their “good books”!
• Be empathetic: Finally, empathy is crucial. It not only fosters relationships but also provides a shoulder for someone to weep on. For instance, reach out to someone if you see them having a difficult day. After then, attempt to listen to them and, if applicable, share any of your personal stories. The other would experience lightness as a result. They’ll feel understood and heard.

Wrapping it up…

To effectively guide teams in performing their duties, managers require these soft skills in addition to the hard skills they possess. The ability to communicate with, inspire, and discipline subordinates are at the top of this list of leadership qualities.

Managerial interpersonal skills are more important than ever. It is essential, especially in a fast-paced business atmosphere. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that to succeed, you’ll need more than simply technical know-how or expertise. People skills help you become more outgoing. To get the most advantage, people must feel comfortable confiding in you. These abilities will ultimately set you apart as a manager.