Soft skills for improving career
Imagine
walking into the interview arena with your polished “skilful” self and
tremendous potential and confidence to crack the interview. Your probable
employer asks you a question that makes you dumbstruck at the absurdity of the
question thrown at you. You realise you cannot communicate!
The
prologue here stands interesting as this raises the demand of the communication
skills in an individual. But it is not only this skill that comes into the
purview when being judged about your potential for success in your career. You have worked hard for your career and
develop all the necessary skill set to outshine others in the same niche. Have
you really developed all the skills? This is a question to ask your own self.
There
are 2 types of skills- Hard skills and soft skills. Just like a computer system
has two components- hardware and software with software being the intangible
part and hardware the tangible, the hard skills are like the tangible part of
your skills which can be easily quantified and judged upon. However the soft
skills cannot be identified easily except for a few impressions that might
either speak for or against your career. You can study whole day and score a
hundred percent marks in your exams but if you are emotionally foolish, you can
expect to suffer a lot. If you want to take home the best example of how soft
skills in a person can do wonders, think about the legendary businessman Steve
Jobs
In
answer to a question from the public
“Does
Steve Jobs know how to code?”
to
which the co founder of Apple Steve Wozniak writes
“Steve
didn’t ever code. He wasn’t an engineer and he didn’t do any original
design...”
These
lines can only make one ponder the wonders soft skills can achieve!
What
soft skills do you really need for your career?
This
is a question worth asking if you want to not only build an effective,
rewarding career with your shining personality but also become successful in
every aspect of your life. Just like the seven habits of highly successful people,
there are these 7 soft skills that you need to develop early in your career
life.
Communication
“The
art of communication is the language of leadership”
⁃James Humes, the
author of “Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln”
The
art of communicating well is so intricately tied with the art of leadership
that one cannot talk without the other. The first quality of leadership is the
communication skill. The development of leadership as a soft skill will be
highlighted later here but as far as communication is concerned, it is not only
oral. This line might ring loud in your years that pen is mightier than sword
and it turns out to be true if you are excellent in paraphrasing or expressing
your words in the material form on paper, words that can strike deep into the
minds and the hearts. The oral communication skill cannot be overemphasised.
The orators and the businessmen shower inspiration and communicate targets and
solve problems through oral communication. Written letters and documents can
play a big part here too. You must learn the art of when to write and when to
say and this ability can be learnt like any other art. Words have power be it
spoken or written. Written or documented sentences have more power than spoken
provided they are read with utmost attention.
Why
do employers seek for such skills in you? Communication is not only about
speaking but also about comprehension of the words being told to you. The
employers expect you to listen and understand the whys and hows of the company
you are working for, your daily targets and the relationships you establish
with your co workers including the employers themselves to carry out the work
without compromising on the quality and quantity. Being a presenter is as
important as being a top notch exam cracker! Learn to present well which can
happen when you develop communication skill.
Problem solving ability
“We
cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”
⁃ The Mastermind Albert Einstein
You
do not need to have a high IQ or a big brain to solve a problem. You need
creativity just like Travis Kalanick said
“Every
problem has a solution. You just have to be creative enough to find it”
Creativity
is a much desired skill which can make you a problem solver. Your employer
expects you to bring solutions to the problems and not your own problems! You
are expected to show a tendency to use your analytical and creative skills to
approach the possible solutions to a problem. Again here there are two types of
people- One who chit chats about the problem incessantly and the other one who
stops talking and start solving. Your employer needs you to be a problem solver
and not a problem creator.
Emotional Intelligence
At
home your wife shot you a word or two that you did not deserve to hear. It
created an internal conflict in you and before you got any time to sort it out,
you were getting late for the workplace. Since energies can neither be created
nor destroyed, all the frustration inside you was transferred to your work. The
result is more than obvious that the work has become affected which is an
undesirable thing to afford. Does the anger of your boss not become inevitable?
The
word IQ has been so overemphasised that EQ or Emotional Quotient has not been provided
proper justice. Oftener than not, EQ has proven to be more important than the
Intelligence Quotient that can either be developed or born with. EQ can be
developed through mind control techniques and meditation. Don’t get me wrong. I
do not mean you cannot be emotional! Being emotional is the best asset that you
can have. What I mean to ask is do your emotions have a steering wheel? A wheel
to give the car a direction? It is the direction of these emotions that is
required from you. If you put your emotions in the work-strong positive
emotions, the work will be said to be put out from the heart and anything done
by heart is deemed to be the best. Simple meditative techniques along with
anger management techniques can ensure success in your career.
As I
am writing this, the beautiful words from Napolean Hill, the author of “Think
And Grow Rich” are ringing loud in my ears
“Positive
and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time. One or the other
must dominate. It is your responsibility to make sure that positive emotions
constitute the dominating influence of your mind”.
This
is what defines a good Emotional Quotient. Do not underestimate the power of it
and you will be in high demand for the services you provide to your employer.
Your career will be greatly enhanced in the long run.
Leadership and team player
I
can hardly be able to imagine a football match being won due to a single player
himself. Had it not been for the effective and tactical passes with strategic
positioning by the football club manager, the team would not have won. If you
think the footballer who has made the most goals in a match is the sole
contributor himself, it simply means you undervalue the essence of being a team
player.
A
team player plays for the team, not for purely personal selfish reasons. Your
employers would love to look at your accolades and certificates in the sports
niche. Why is that so? They portray your ability to be a team player. They show
your knowledge about the fact that the game cannot be one without the art of Cooperation.
Cooperation
is a powerful term and it is only the power of a leader to drive organized
effort in a highly effective manner. A leader is a team player who has the
capability to understand human nature and has his vision crystal clear. Every
organisation has a vision board which depicts its vision. The employers expect
us to understand and base our actions on the stated vision. Being a team player
is the first step to leadership.
Your
boss will prefer you to be a team player and if you exhibit the personalities
of a leader, you will be raised to a higher position to lead people.
A
team player does more than what he is required to do. If you show tendency to
work for the amount of salary you are given, you will stagnate in your current
position. But the moment you start taking initiatives, you will be offered what
you truly deserve. Team player and leadership are must to develop soft skills.
They will not come easy. You will need to work for them.
An aptitude for technology
In
this technological boom, a business cannot be successful without successful
implementation of the Information Systems. The robots are replacing humans
while the humans are expected to know how to run those robots. Those robots can
mean any automated system that can carry out the work at your command.
Computers are no less than robots. They work at your commands even though in 1s
and 0s.
You
may be wondering if this is even a soft skill to worry about!
The
situation has grown complex. Gone are those days when your employer required
hand written notes and documentations from you. Everything is now stored in the
database and you must be adept at handling access and retrieval operations. If
you have a good aptitude as well as curiosity for technology, you can make a
big niche in your career as a senior executive who can oversee a majority of
operations of the business. The importance of having technological skills
cannot be ignored in any career, be it just being agile in typing on a basic
Microsoft word!
Even
if you are not required to know for instance, knowledge about advanced excel to
carry out the tasks, there is a tremendous scope for making your tasks easier
and more efficient if you do know it. Technology can help divert your precious
time in analyzing instead of being clerical. Employers will always want the
work to be completed in as less time as possible without loss of quality.
Technology is a huge time saver.
Eagerness to learn
Now
this term can make you go nuts because you do not know what I exactly mean by
the phrase “eagerness to learn”. It is time to keep your ego about your hard
skills aside and realise the fact that you still do not anything even if you
have learnt “everything”.
“The
only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”
If
the wisest man Socrates knows nothing, how can you expect to know everything?
Why
does your employer want this curiosity to learn?
As
business organizations are getting complex everyday with increased competition,
you will be expected to know much more than you are bound to do for a fixed
income every month. Your boss will always want a learner and not a preacher! If
your co worker or your boss is teaching you something, you need to be as
curious as Issac Newton and inspect the apple. The moment you realise you know
everything about what you are doing, your learning will stop and cannot further
contribute to the organization as a whole
Resilience
Being
the last point, you might overlook it but to speak the truth, your boss will
try to test your resiliency. Why is being resilient so important?
Your
ability to bounce back from the face of tough situations will always be desired
by your employer. It is in fact one of the most favourable assets that you can
possess. When your company starts incurring losses, your boss will not want you
to shift to greener pastures instead of being creative and analyzing and
solving problems. Being creative is always desired but being creative in case
of tough times will amount to resilience. Resilience will decide your ability
to handle failures and get back up and start changing your tomorrow for the
better.
If you want to shine like a bright lamp in your career,
make sure to imbibe these quality soft skills. Without soft skills even if you
get a big handsome amount, that will only be temporary.
