What is a personality development course?
A personality development course helps students learn or enhance their interpersonal and communication skills. They are important for people who want to create a niche in the industry but feel handicapped because of a lack of communication or interpersonal skills. In today’s competitive environment, it is crucial to have soft skills. Moreover, as the global work environment changes to adopt remote working, having great communication skills becomes even more important. A good personality development course can be extremely helpful in such cases. To understand the need for a personality development course, let’s first understand what personality is.
What is personality?
The personality of a human being is a complex construct. It encompasses the feelings, thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, and qualities of a person. The development of an individual’s personality depends on their inherent traits and external environment. This is why every individual handles situations differently. For example, some people have the tenacity to withstand the most difficult circumstances, whereas others may crumble under the slightest pressure.
What do these courses entail (in India)?
In India, there are several courses offering personality development. Some degree programs, such as BBA, MBA, etc., offer personality development as a course module. Apart from this, there are certificate courses for personality development offered by training institutes across India. There are personality development courses for adults as well as kids. Though the basics of personality development are the same, the needs of adults and kids are different. With growing competition in schools and colleges and the admission processes, personality development courses for kids help open up their personas.
There are both free and paid personality development courses available in India. Moreover, in the post-pandemic scenario, both online and offline personality development courses are available. The courses are offered in different modules – beginners, intermediate, advanced. Some online courses can be as short as 1.5 to 3 hours or as long as a few months.
What is the purpose of a personality development course?
In a globally connected world, the key to thriving lies in a person’s ability to communicate with others. One needs to establish a connection at both a personal and professional level. The skills that help one do well at either level include:
- Interpersonal skills
- Communication skills
- Adaptive skills
- Organizational skills
- Strong work ethic
- Leadership skills
- Integrity and honesty
The main purpose of a personality development course is to enhance or develop these skills in an individual. While every individual has a varying degree of each skill, it is important to achieve an optimum level. To communicate effortlessly in a boundaryless manner, one needs to get over the following communication barriers:
- Language barriers: If you wish to be part of the global workforce, knowledge of the language of communication is important. For example, if English is the main language of communication in the company you wish to work with, you must improve your written and spoken English.
- Cultural barriers: Increasingly, people are joining companies with a diverse workforce. People from different cultures may have different perceptions or ways of communicating. When you start working with people of a specific background, it is important to learn how to avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding.
- Emotional barriers: It is important to know how to contain one’s emotions, especially when overwhelmed. It is likely that when one is overcome by anger or excitement, one may say something that may be misinterpreted or could cause tension.
- Organizational barriers: These mostly relate to organizational hierarchies and the confusions or hesitancy they may lead to. Employees may hesitate to ask questions from leaders and managers, which may directly affect their performance.
A good course will help you overcome these barriers with ease.
The personality development courses often focus on the 7 C’s of communication:
- Clarity: The purpose of communication and the communication itself must be clear. Knowing the purpose of the communication prepares the listener mentally. Communicate in a language clearly understood by the audience or person you are communicating with. Steer clear of jargon and technical terms. Ensure that you use the simplest way to communicate what you have to.
- Correctness: Do a thorough background knowledge that you plan to share with others. When people receive incorrect communication from a source, that source – leader, manager, business, website, or any other entity – loses credibility. So, one must ensure the factual and grammatical accuracy of the information one is sharing.
- Completeness: Providing complete information to your audience can ensure that they better understand what you are conveying, understand your core idea, and make informed decisions where needed. Your information must clarify all doubts or questions that could arise in your audience’s minds.
- Concreteness: What facts and figures you use to back your claims determine how impactful your communication is. It is, therefore, important that you have solid points of discussion and that they are communicated clearly. Also, eliminate any points or ideas that may dilute the core message of your discussion.
- Conciseness: People don’t have time. If they spare the time to read or listen to what you have to say, you must make sure you make it worth their while. Thus, remove anything that does not add value to your communication. Keep your communication short and simple.
- Courtesy: Being polite with your audience can be a doorway to their heart and their mind. Empathize with your audience and keep your communication honest, polite, respectful, amiable, and considerate.
- Coherence: Craft your communication carefully to string all points you want to make. The points you make must be interconnected and not seem discursive. The points or examples must be consistent with the core message.
Personality development courses try to build the above qualities in a student’s communication.
Benefits of the course
Personality development courses have the following benefits:
- Development of the skills highlighted above
- Increased chances of landing good jobs
- Inculcation of a positive and can-do attitude
- Improves the willingness to learn
- Increases open-mindedness
- Improves punctuality and the importance one gives to other’s time
- Increases the ability to deal with difficult circumstances
- Increases problem-solving ability
- Helps handle stress, anxiety, and depression
- Gives one the ability to maintain one’s cool in any scenario
- Increases leadership skills and result-orientation
With so many benefits, pursuing a personality development course is useful for most individuals. Sometimes, a personality development course may reiterate things we already know but do not implement in our daily lives. A professional course may facilitate the implementation of these skills or qualities.
