SOFT SKILLS:

 What – Why – How of soft skills

A lot has been written & spoken about Soft Skills and its Importance. Here is a simple explanation as to: what are 'Soft Skills', why they are important and how can you learn or improve this set of skills.

What are soft skill skills?

“Soft Skills” are now buzz words used profusely throughout industry across the globe.  But, if you ask someone to define “soft skills”, they would probably give you unclear, inaccurate and mostly vague definitions.

Simply put ‘Soft Skills’ may be defined or understood as a cluster or collection of personality traits, behaviors, habits, skills, characteristics that help people to execute every day work in a professional, profitable and useful way. It would be appropriate to add that a person’s attitude towards work and life, ease of communication, work ethic and emotional intelligence, all put together and put to use in daily work and life provide proof of possession of soft skills in a person.

There are broadly five segments of skills essential to success in a career, which include both hard and soft skills:-

Hard Skills: – These are a set of trade skills and learned expertise through some kind of training or education, for example, software programming, accounts or mechanical engineering which we need to perform our job.

 Soft Skills: - For easy understanding, soft skills may also be called people skills as most of the time a person in business or career interacts in more ways than one with people. Some  examples of soft skills or people skills would include communication and interpersonal skills and expertise including  skills to manage well office politics, office work flow and interaction at different levels.  

  So having a good idea may not be enough, but communicating the idea effectively to the right set of   people and being able to brush aside question marks and make the idea implementable is more important.  

There are a number of soft skills or people skills that one should develop during the course of one’s career.    Being good at these skills will enable you to not only engage but also influence, and acquire the support of other team members and clients.

1.   Soft Skills – A variety of Self management skills are also required for career growth and success. These skills help a person to manage a person’s self- perception and also one’s response to uncomfortable situations both, in personal and professional lif.   For example,

§  It would be difficult for a person to succeed if he or she lacked in confidence to do the things that would help career progression.

§  Also, can a person succeed if he or she finds it difficult to control his or her emotions, like anger or impulsiveness during stressful situations?

The list of self management skills would include being confident at all times , having patience while dealing with difficult people and emotional control to take the right decision, to better manage stress.

2.   Attitude Toward Work – This part of personal skills would refer to one’s temperament and perspective towards work, clients and colleagues.  Traits like personal work ethic, positive frame of mind, and the eagerness to learn make up the list of attributes basically valued by most good companies globally.

3.   Professional Behavior – This list includes basic business etiquette and behavioral traits like, the way we dress for work, how we generally speak to our colleagues and business associates at different levels , mostly how we behave in our work environment.

Why are Soft Skills or People Skills important?

So, in case you are a businessman or a professional or a careerist; whatever is you profession the common denominator of all business is people, your relation with them and your communication with one or all of them.

So the skills which make it easier for you to conduct yourself professionally and personally are relevant and essential in each transaction, communication, and process leading to business and personal success.

Hence such skills are your keys to success without which the door to success stays shut whatever you my do.

How to develop soft skills or people skills?

Man, someone has said, is a creature of habit. Everything in life we do or the things we mostly do are in one way or another because of habit.

So, one easy way to develop soft skills would be to first find out the skills required for success in your field and in case you do not possess these traits set about learning them till the time they become second nature and a part of your habits.

Wish you all the best!

PS: In case you require help, write to me on jobsourceindia@gmail.com