Interpersonal Skills and Effective Communication Course
Course information
Effective communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and career growth in today’s workplace. This practical, evidence-based communication skills course helps professionals build confidence, influence others, and manage challenging workplace conversations more effectively.
Through interactive activities and real-world case studies, you will discover your personal communication style, learn how to recognise and adapt to different communication styles, choose the right communication channel for any audience, and apply active listening and non-verbal communication techniques to build trust and collaboration.
You will also strengthen your assertiveness, gain tools to handle difficult conversations, and practise giving and receiving feedback in ways that promote psychological safety and stronger workplace relationships. With practical strategies and AI-powered tools to act as your personal communication coach, you will finish with a tailored action plan to boost your communication effectiveness at work.
This course is ideal for professionals, team leaders, managers, and anyone looking to improve their influence and impact in a hybrid, fast-changing workplace. For deeper development, we recommend pairing this course with our Emotional Intelligence Course, or our Team Managers and Leaders Course: Essential Skills.
Aims
This course aims to provide participants with practical strategies to communicate more clearly and confidently at work. The course focuses on everyday interactions and equips learners to adapt their approach, supporting their long-term professional growth. It also highlights why interpersonal skills and effective communication matter and provides a safe environment to practise core techniques that translate directly to their job.
The course covers key communication strategies that apply to face-to-face, virtual and written communication.
Through guided practice and feedback, participants will be ready to navigate common barriers and apply communication tools to create better outcomes in real workplace situations.
Outcomes
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
- build interpersonal skills and effective communication fundamentals
- choose an appropriate communication mode and channel for the purpose and audience
- identify your personal communication style
- recognise others’ communication styles and adapt your approach to influence others
- use active listening and effective non-verbal communication
- build assertiveness and navigate difficult conversations in workplace interactions.
Content
Topic 1: Building interpersonal skills and effective communication
- Why interpersonal skills and effective communication are important
- What is effective communication
- Modes and channels of communication
Topic 2: Understanding and adapting communication styles
- What influences behaviour and communication styles
- Understanding your own communication style
- Identifying others’ communication styles
- Adapting to different communication styles for rapport and influence
Topic 3: Active listening and non-verbal communication
- Listening for content, emotion, and intent
- Questioning and summarising to check understanding
- Aligning body language, facial expressions, and tone
Topic 4: Courageous conversations
- Why we avoid difficult conversations
- Giving and receiving feedback effectively
- Building assertiveness
Topic 5: Application
- AI as your communication coach
- Personal action plan
Intended audience
This course is designed for professionals at all levels who want to improve their communication skills and strengthen workplace relationships. It’s particularly valuable for:
- Team leaders, managers, and supervisors seeking to influence, motivate, and engage their teams
- Professionals looking to enhance their collaboration and impact in cross-functional or hybrid environments
- Individuals who want to build confidence when giving feedback, handling difficult conversations, or presenting ideas
- Anyone seeking to better understand their own communication style and adapt to others for improved workplace outcomes.
Prerequisites
None
Delivery style
This course is highly interactive and practical. Participants will engage in:
- real-world scenarios and workplace-relevant case studies
- interactive activities to identify and apply personal communication styles
- group discussions and role-plays
- personalised reflection exercises to build self-awareness and action plans.
Delivery modes
- Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
- Online training via the platform Zoom
Materials
Course materials are distributed electronically.
Recommended reading
Edmondson, A.C. (2018) The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Available at: https://www.amazon.com.au/Fearless-Organization-Psychological-Workplace-Innovation/dp/1119477247/
Extended DISC (2023) “Introduction to Extended DISC”. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shEDJmy8i-A
Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). “Psychological safety: A meta‐analytic review and extension”. Personnel Psychology. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217291252.pdf
Scott, K. (2019) “How to Lead with Radical Candor”. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmxHUiiHgNk
Shao, Y., Zope, H., Jiang, Y., Pei, J., Nguyen, D., Brynjolfsson, E. and Yang, D. (2025) ‘Future of Work with AI Agents: Stanford University. Available at: https://cs191w.stanford.edu/projects/Spring2025/Humishka___Zope_.pdf
Van Edwards, V. (2017) “Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People”. Available at: https://www.amazon.com.au/Captivate-Succeeding-Vanessa-Van-Edwards/dp/024130993X/
Upcoming classes
<p>Effective communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and career growth in today’s workplace. This practical, evidence-based communication skills course
...
<p>Effective communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and career growth in today’s workplace. This practical, evidence-based communication skills course
...
<p>Effective communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and career growth in today’s workplace. This practical, evidence-based communication skills course
...<p>Effective communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and career growth in today’s workplace. This practical, evidence-based communication skills course
...<p>Effective communication and strong interpersonal skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and career growth in today’s workplace. This practical, evidence-based communication skills course
...Meet the facilitators
Wendy Jocum
Jeremy Khoh
What others say
This was a fantastic course, which covered a lot of interesting content. A great facilitator who used a variety of theory, video and workshop discussions to keep everyone engaged throughout the day. I met some really interesting people from a range of industries/workplaces and I found it very beneficial having the chance to hear other peoples stories, experiences and opinions on the various topics covered in the course. Will definitely recommend this to others! Thank you!
Carolyn Hendry
Awesome course! Provides useful tools to all of us, for both work and non-work communications. Deals with current (modern) issues and technologies and their impact on our everyday communications. It is an eye-opener and it could/should be done by both junior and senior employees (in any industry), as a checkpoint of their own communications methods and (adopted) norms.
Radoslav Erceg
I thoroughly enjoyed this course, the contents were clear. The tutor was captivating and extremely knowledgeable. I am grateful I was given the opportunity to attend as part of my learning development as a Team Leader. I would love to attend any future courses with this Tutor. Excellent.
Fiasasagi Leha'uli
