~How Others View Me As a Communicator~
After getting both my husband and a co-workers to evaluate me this week as a communicator, I was shocked to discover that my husband score indicated that I am people-oriented, mild when it comes to communication anxiety, and significant on the verbal aggressiveness scale. My co-worker rated me as being time- oriented, low on communication anxiety scale, and low on the verbal aggressiveness scale.
One of the things that surprised me the most is the fact that my husband feels as though I am a little more verbal aggressive than I do. I have to admit that I communicate with him more aggressively than I do with others because I am more comfortable with him and I now that he understand me and where I am coming from. I was also surprised to learn that my co-worker feels as though I am time-oriented. I do not want my co-workers to feel as though I do not have time for them.
Two other insights that I learned about communication this week is that stereotyping may be positive, negative, or neutral and could possibly lead to negative and/or bad communication. The second thing is self-esteem. As the text book mentions, people that have high self esteem are more confident in their interpersonal relationships because they believe that they are more likely to believe that being friendly will cause others to be friendly in return.
Two things that I have learned from this experience to do better is to treat my husband just as good as I treat the people that I work with and have to communicate in a positive manner. I also plan on having more time for my employees. I do know that there are things that I have to get accomplished throughout the day. I plan on making time out of my schedule that is strictly dedicated for listing to my employees.
Keep in mind that people see you differently because you have different responsibilities. Like you said, you have a more relaxed relationship with your husband, but at work you are concentrating on getting everything done. I do agree that it is important to take time to listen to those we work with - I only wish the listening assessment scale had scores in addition to the groups so that we could see to what extent we fit into these categories. Perhaps your colleagues see you only slightly more focused on time than people. But either way, it is important to maintain boundaries along with relationships.
ReplyDeleteIts amazing how people view and scale things different. I knew your husband evaluation would be more aggresstive because he is with you most of time. I had to realize the stereotyping can be positive and neutral. I have always looked at it negative because growing that was the only way it was taught.
ReplyDeleteKatrina,
ReplyDeleteThis week really brought me back to how dependent on the type of relationship or environmental setting many sometimes determine the way in which we are perceived as a communicator. In your case you are a great examples of that. The results that you husband scored you versus that of your colleges’ are based on your roles and responsibilities.