Soft Skills: The Differentiating Factor
What are soft skills?
What are the top 5 soft skills?
Proficiency in Communication
Great communicators go on to become great leaders in the workplace. This is a fact that can certainly not be denied. On any given day, your professional success will depend on how well you can communicate ideas, convey issues and understand instructions. In fact, the need for you to be an efficient communicator increases as you rise through the ranks.
A leader is expected to be an impeccable communicator. Great leaders keep their teams motivated and effective via consistent passage of information. Also, they take the initiative to keep the team communication conducive and efficient at all times.
Having said that, if your idea of professional success is to claim leadership roles, it may seem undoable without communication excellence.
Effective Decision-Making
The margin for error in the professional world is too small. We can say the same for students as well in the context of their academic journeys. A hasty or emotional decision can undo years of hard work. Having said that, your skills with respect to decision-making are very critical to your success.
In fact, decision-making skills may be looked at as an umbrella term for a culmination of soft skills. Effective decision-making will require a great sense of situational awareness, active listening, attention to detail and an analytical outlook towards things. Moreover, it will also require a high degree of emotional intelligence to make the right decision in time. Well, before you start wondering what emotional intelligence is, let me tell you that it is the very next skill on my list.
Emotional Intelligence
Is your decision to pursue your higher education in abroad a well-thought decision? Or is it simply an emotional one because your best friend too is going abroad? How did you decide your study abroad destination? Was it more of a practical thought or again an emotional decision?
Otherwise, if you are a working professional, how did you decide your career path? Is it a concrete path or much inspired by your emotions? How well do you take care of your emotions daily in the workplace? Of course, all of us face emotional dilemmas all the time and it may seem overwhelming mostly. However, to navigate the emotions and think rationally is a skill everyone must aim for.
The real question is, can there be a skill to manage emotions positively and not let them come in the way of your success? Can there be a way around emotions? Well, yes and the answer is emotional intelligence.
Your emotional intelligence or EQ is defined as your ability to control and manage your emotions to drive positive outcomes. In fact, people with EQ do not only manage their emotions well but also assist others in doing so.
For sure, emotional intelligence has become one of the most indispensable skills for leaders and managers. Moreover, let me tell you a few astonishing facts about the importance of EQ in the workplace. As per Vantage Circle, 90 percent of top performers in the corporate world have above-average EQ.
To add, people with high EQ are known to earn USD 29000 more on average than those with low or no EQ. Lastly, it is also surprising to learn that EQ can account for as much as 58 percent of your job performance. Clearly, EQ is a soft skill that gives your career wings of advancement quite literally.
Creativity and Problem-Solving Skills
You may be a great coder or an absolutely fantastic architect. However, can you respond to crisis situations with great confidence and find a way around problems rather than sulking? If you are someone who can fix problems in real-time and keep bringing innovation to the table, you are an asset. Any organization would love to have such an asset on their side!
Effective and decisive problem solving again requires high EQ, situational awareness, the ability to adapt quickly, and resilience to challenges. Moreover, it requires the creative intellect to find creative solutions to complex problems.
All in all, whenever there will be a discussion on soft skills examples, creativity and problem-solving will definitely feature.
Conflict Resolution
Soft skills also encompass your ability to navigate conflicts in the workplace that may be holding back your or your team’s productivity. When you rise to senior positions, you will be faced with conflicts among your team members quite often.
As a leader, you will need to display efficient conflict-resolution skills. It will ensure that you keep your team on the same page and get the best out of them.
Even as an individual, you should be able to resolve your conflicts with your team members and contribute positively to the team.
To summarize, soft skills can be looked at as great facilitators of professional success They are equally important if not more when compared to hard skills. Yes, the hard skills versus soft skills debate will go on forever. But to my understanding, soft skills will always have a slight edge. So, be it for jobs, careers, admissions or study abroad scholarships, soft skills will be the ultimate key. Your resume should brag about your soft skills!
Author Bio : Mr. Almasto Kapoor
I believe that wisdom and information amplify when shared with others. With more than 14 years of vast experience in tertiary education and having assisted a plethora of students in accomplishing their higher education dreams, I’d like to believe that my knowledge is substantial. To make this knowledge count, I love sharing it with students to apprise them of the intricacies of overseas education and to go with that, my keen interest in writing makes it an even more fulfilling thing to do!
almastokapoor3@gmail.com
