You communicate in your own particular way – we all do. Over the years you’ve developed your own natural communication style.
To come across confidently and to look as though you’re in control, it helps if you’re aware of this style.
People with good communication skills already know what’s good and what’s bad about their natural style; in other words, they know their strengths and weaknesses in terms of how they communicate. Some people like to be the centre of attention and to talk, others prefer to watch from the sidelines and to listen.
Decisions such as these are determined both consciously and subconsciously through your natural communication style. This ‘style’ is the way you come across when you don’t consciously think about it. It will suit certain situations but not others. That’s why it’s so important to get to the bottom of it….
Otherwise, there’s a good chance that, just by being your normal self and communicating in your natural way, without even realising it, you’ll:
- Make someone feel uncomfortable
- Distract them from your message
- Appear rude to them
- Appear boring and disinterested
- Look like a person who lacks confidence.
Adapting your communication style
Once you know your natural style, you can make sure these negative perceptions don’t arise. The secret is to think about adapting your communication style when you find yourself in a situation it doesn’t suit. That’s exactly what people with good communication skills do.
In fact, this is one of the main reasons why people lack self-confidence and self-belief; they don’t know when or how to adapt their communication style. But before you can work out how to adapt your style, you need to establish what type of communication style you have.
You also need to know if it’s helping you or hindering you in relation to effective communication skills. Most people think ‘communication’ is merely about talking. It’s not though; talking is just one element of what it means to communicate.
Try thinking more widely about the concept of communication. For example, have you ever considered that how you say something might be just as important as what you say? There are numerous models and theories that can help to identify your personal communication style. There are also a variety of communication tests you can take.
Try my free communication style test http://www.think-confidence.com/registercs.html. Don’t worry, it’s not a complicated psychometric test – in fact it’s not even a ‘test’ as such; it’s a straight forward multiple-choice communication questionnaire.
In short, it’s a simple way of improving your communication skills by working out your natural communication style.
Hope you find it helpful…
Mike McClement is founder and director of Training Hand’s Think Confidence.
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