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Soft skills are integral part of being a successful employee, irrespective of their levels in the organization, though it is very critical for senior staff. Therefore, it is important to understand the soft skills that are needed to perform your job very well and work on improving these skills. Let us try and understand what these are.
What are the Soft Skills that are needed at work place?
Well, there are big lists of soft skills that are required at the work place, but not all of them are needed at every level or job roles. Hence, it is essential to understand each of them and then we could choose the ones that are to be developed.
First and foremost is the Communication Skills.
Communication skill has four sub skills
(i) Listening Skills
(ii) Articulation Skills
(iii) Fluency and
(iv) Writing skills.
This skill is important for most job roles, though criticality or importance of this skill might differ depending on the job roles and your level in your organizational hierarchy. For some roles like customer facing roles, leadership roles, administrative roles or Sales roles, good communication skill is of paramount importance. At the same time, it is not so critical for some roles were you are expected to be an independent contributor. Even in such cases, in order for you to grow to higher levels, communication skills would be unavoidable.
The below graph depicts the typical relationship between Communication skills and the Growth potential in the corporate world. As you can see a person with a combination of good technical skills as well as strong communication skills are likely to grow faster.
Figure 1:
Communication skill is the only soft skill required for a corporate career ?
Not at all! Other Soft skills that are needed for a corporate career are Leadership skills, Convincing skills, Negotiation skills, Probing Skills, Time Management, Positive Thinking, Interpersonal skills and many more. We will discuss here some of the most essential skills that will help you thrive in your career.
Who need to demonstrate Leadership Skills?
Though, leadership skill is a must have skill for any one playing a supervisory or leadership roles, companies usually look for these skills in all the candidates during interview time irrespective of levels. This is done as they need to develop leaders internally rather than recruiting laterally from other companies in most cases. While, to a great extend leadership skills are inborn, it could be developed too, provided ample opportunities are available. In order to develop this skill, try and get involved in as many activities and initiatives that you get, to mobilize people, organize any events or programs, and interact with as many people as possible, especially those who are much senior than you. Of course, you could watch various materials available online, read books on leadership and attend appropriate trainings to equip you and develop these skills.
Who needs convincing and negotiation skills?
Of course, people in sales and marketing field cannot even survive in their profession without these two skills. Does that mean that only sales professionals need these skills? Not at all. These are skills that are essential tools for our daily living too, be it in office environment, in business or even in our personal life. Convincing skill is an essential armour that you could have in getting others to agree with you and follow you in your thoughts and ideas. Therefore, this will not only help you lead a satisfactory life, but also will help you develop your leadership skills with ease.
Do I really need probing skills?
Certainly yes! If your role requires you to work with customers to understand their requirements and provide solutions, then this is the most essential skills that you would need. Many a times, companies fail to deliver satisfactory level of services to their customers because, they fail to understand the requirements in detail. As far as customers are concerned, they may not proactively give detailed requirements as those micro level details are trivial as far as they are concerned. However, those may not be trivial for you as your understanding of their business may not be at their level. Therefore, developing strong probing skills will help you deliver to the expectations of your customers and there by opens up ample opportunities through referrals from satisfied customers.
How will time management skill will help me be effective?
Time is one think that cannot be recreated if lost. Therefore, it is important to master the art of time management in order for you to complete all the important tasks and there by being successful in your career. Most essential concept you need to understand is the difference between ‘Important’ and ‘Urgent’ tasks and prioritize the tasks so that important ones are given its due significance. Besides these, learning to master your habit of procrastination would help you to master the time effectively.
How would positive thinking help me at me work place?
Positivity is a contagious quality. That will easily spread to people around you and make them perform their work whole heartedly. The positive thought will lead to positive actions and these actions in turn will lead to positive outcome and ultimately, this will lead to a positive and productive work environment.
Are these the only soft skills I would need to ensure a successful career?
Not really. However, the above discussed soft skills are the most essential skills that would be needed in almost all careers.
Though our schools and colleges are expected to cultivate skills required for their students to be successful in life, unfortunately most organizations focus only in imparting hard skills/technical skills, rather than the required soft skills. Therefore, it is up to each individual to understand the importance of these soft skills and sharpen them at the early stages of their career in order to have a successful career.
All the best!
Regards,
Sony George
Mob: 9741007766