Among other skills that are inborn, I would say that communication skills are not one of them. As an engineering student, I would say that we are not exposed very much to this skill in NUS, though some courses like Human resources are meant for us to interact and communicate well. In my opinion, to communicate effectively is a vital aspect of an engineer since even though you are very good in the technical areas, you need communication skills to explain to people so that they can better understand it.
From my personal experience that I have encountered when I was the Vice-Chairperson of a committee, I found out that communicating effectively indeed helps to resolve a lot of conflicts. Last week, I was a victim of bad communication. I had to give an oral presentation for my final year project and later there was a series of Q&A with my examiner and I could not understand his accent. I had no idea what his questions were and I was quite resilient to ask him to repeat for the third time. At the end I did not answer and I’m sure he must have had a bad impression of me.
I strongly believe that being an effective communicator is an important asset of being of a great leader. Let us take the example of Mr Obama; the way he delivers his speech is very good and this inspires a lot of people especially the youth.
Lastly communicating effectively helps a lot when you are in a foreign country to mingle with the locals and hence learn more about their cultures and values.
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