Improve Your Work Communication Skills

Improving your interpersonal communication skills  is not merely about “being kinder”, “being more social” or “speaking up more.” It stems from how clearly you think under pressure, how confidently you speak, how others experience you, and whether people trust what they hear from you.

It’s about how you show up at the intersection of your self-awareness and social awareness.

Many capable professionals struggle here – not because they have nothing to say, but because something seems to interfere with their ability to say it well in the moment. Or, their message gets recieved in a very different way than they intended.

If you are facing struggles in your workplace communication, you are not alone.

Symptoms of issues in your interpersonal & work communication

① You have ideas or thoughts you’d like to share, but you keep quiet instead of speaking up.

② You need to repeat yourself a few times before your listener understands you.

③ You overthink, or people-please.

④ You struggle with your words and sentences, even though you have no speech impediments.

⑤ Your mind goes blank when you try to speak.

⑥ Your emotions (e.g. anxiety, fear, frustration) get in the way.

⑦ You come across as too pushy, blunt or intimidating.

Which ones of the above symptoms have challenged you at your workplace? Many professionals have had their impactful messages and good intentions thwarted because of these communication symptoms. They know they are capable. They may even be doing good work. But in live interactions, especially under pressure, they do not come across the way they want to.

Yuri Belotti

Why tips & self-help do not always improve interpersonal communication

Before my clients sought me, many of them have already tried the usual advice:

“Speak more slowly.”
“Be more assertive.”
“Think positive.”
“Just be confident.”
“Prepare your points in advance.”

These suggestions are not wrong. But they often do not go deep enough.

Because when the pressure is on, communication is not only about words. Your body, emotions, and thought process are involved too. If your body tightens, your emotions spike, and your mind starts racing, it becomes much harder to apply a communication tip neatly in the moment.

This is why even after consuming a lot of self-help, reading about communication, and even understanding the advice intellectually… you still struggle in real conversations. The problem is happening live, in the moment, and your response is being produced from the entirety of your being, not merely in your mind.

Hence, my interpersonal communication coaching goes beyond surface techniques. I help you to uncover what’s happening in your body, emotions and mind, so that your entire being can become steadier, and more intentional under pressure. When you shift yourself in this holistic manner, your communication will naturally shift as well, and it is specially effective for executive communication coaching.

How poor interpersonal communication skills can hold you back in the workplace

Displaying poor interpersonal communication skills at your workplace can result in anything from dissatisfaction to emotional distress (high anxiety), or a drop in confidence. It could stem from your character, or from specific changes, environments or people in your life. Regardless of the cause, this can impact the quality of your workplace relationships. Your professional image might suffer, as how you communicate affects peoples’ perception of your reliability and effectiveness.

This can be particularly damaging to you if you’re a leader, or currently striving for promotion into leadership.  Your interpersonal core skills are the basis of not just your executive communication, but your executive presence too. The first is more about what you say and how you say it. The second is about what others can already ‘feel’ from you before you even utter a word. This begs a deeper dive into how emotion is a critical aspect in good interpersonal communication.

Emotion is at the core of good interpersonal communication

Emotional mastery is also a key factor in how you’re able to express and assert yourself. In other words, your emotional mastery can affect your clarity in communication, both in your own thoughts, and how you express yourself out loud. When you are able to harness your emotional energy consciously, you are more likely to:

Jace Lim

“I had challenges with communications due to mental barriers which resulted in much undue stress. Working with El, I felt these personal mental barriers break down, and a new way of being opened up for me. Thank you Ellery – I’ve even gotten a promotion! A truly liberating experience.

Practical reasons to improve your interpersonal communication skills

Your ability to communicate affects how people experience you at the interpersonal level. To a huge degree, it doesn’t matter how clear you think you are; what’s most important is what the other party received. Two factors can make a big difference here: the ability to notice or seek feedback, and the curiosity and capacity to process that feedback. Essentially, this refers to the ability to look into how your listener is percieving you and what they are personally recieving, without being defensive or judgemental on your part. This allows you to not just avoid communcation pitfalls, but build stronger relational trust for the long term.

This is even more relevant when you consider that like it or not, your performance is partly assessed through the quality of your relationships. It is also influenced heavily by how you – quite literally – make your various stakeholders feel.

How coaching can help your interpersonal communication & confidence at the workplace

Through personal coaching, you can improve your communication and reclaim your confidence at work. This is familiar territory I’ve visited with clients on over the years, as a full-time life coach, specializing in communication and confidence.

Every coaching engagement is unique, because each client has different needs, weaknesses and strengths. However, there are processes that unfold every single time:

• Through open exploration and in-depth reflection, we will uncover your blindspots.
• Once you can see the cause or nature of your issue, you might also be able to see how you can do things differently so you get different result.
• I can also guide you to try new ways of saying or doing things, that are effective and feel authentic for you.
• Together, we will co-create practices that you can adopt, to assimilate what you learn into your regular way of being.
• I will provide you with honest feedback which you can use to calibrate and fine-tune your new skills.

What coaching is

Coaching is a form of super-customised learning, focused solely on your needs. It is one of the most dignified forms of professional help, because you choose the topic, direction and depth of what you wish to work on.

In fact, my clients are NOT ‘broken’ in any way. They are capable, creative and self-initiated individuals who want to live out their full potential. Many of them are high-performers at their workplace.

They just want support to help them hit their objectives more quickly and with less pain.

Through coaching, you can improve your interpersonal communication skills and learn how to consciously carry the kind of presence you need at the workplace. This is familiar territory I’ve visited with clients on over the years, as a full-time coach, specializing in executive communication and confidence.

Every coaching engagement is unique, because each client has different needs, weaknesses and strengths. That said, there are processes that unfold consistently in every coaching engagement:

• Through open exploration and in-depth reflection, we will uncover your blindspots.
• Once you can see the cause or nature of your issue, you might also be able to see how you can do things differently so you get different result.
• I can also guide you to try new ways of saying or doing things, that are effective and feel authentic for you.
• Together, we will co-create practices that you can adopt, to assimilate what you learn into your regular way of being.
• I will provide you with honest feedback which you can use to calibrate and fine-tune your new skills.

I’m Ellery Ng, PCC, NCC® — Executive Communication & Confidence Coach. I help leaders improve their executive communication and presence through practical, holistic methods.