The Effect of Personality Characteristics on the Development of Interpersonal Communication Skills Through One-Time Training

Abstract

The importance of interpersonal communication skills in the business environment will only increase as the world undergoes trends of globalization and digitization, as well as various crises. The factors that affect interpersonal skills, such as life experience, situational factors, and individual characteristics, are difficult to isolate. Among the prominent antecedents of interpersonal communication effectiveness are personality characteristics. The current study used one-time training to examine how personality traits and interpersonal skills relate among 127 managers from a wide variety of professions in Israel. The current study confirmed the effect of personality characteristics on interpersonal communication skills, albeit weakly. A significant improvement was found in the Emotional stability following the training. Participating in the training changed the way people associate personality traits with Interaction management. An in-depth study of an intervening variable found that those with low extraversion and high conscientiousness improved assertiveness, empathy, supportiveness, openness to experience, and self-disclosure, in contrast to those with less solid personality characteristics who showed a smaller improvement or even decreased in these skills. Our findings have important implications for increasing the effectiveness of interpersonal skills training.