How to improve your soft skills at work
Corporate skills
These are generally CEO level skills, but
if you are familiar with them you will be in a position to guide your
boss towards success ie working together for a common goal as a team.
You can become a courageous follower as mentioned by Ira Chaleff in his
award-winning book Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders.
These skills include:
~ Political sensitivity.
~ Business and commercial awareness.
~ Strategic awareness.
~ Understanding funding streams and mechanisms.
~ Information management.
~ Organisation and control.
~ Team building.
~ Communication and persuasion.
~ Networking and public relations.
~ Leading change.
Employability skills
These have to be mastered by employable
graduates and freshers include communication, team working, leadership,
initiative, problem solving, flexibility and enthusiasm.
Every skill helps us to learn one more as they overlap each other.
To quote an example, leadership
encompasses a number of other skills including cooperating with others,
planning and organising, making decisions and verbal communication.
Verbal communication itself involves various means of communication,
some of which you may find easier than others -- talking over the phone,
making a presentation to a group, explaining something to a person with
a more limited understanding of the topic for example.
By improving one skill, you may also
improve a number of others. In the context of your career planning and
development, they are called career management skills
Life skills
These
skills are related to the head, heart, hands and health ie highly
personal and behavioural skills which reflects our personality and
naturally helps in personality development.
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/learningandliving/main/tlsmodel.html
We
manage and think with our head. Resilience, keeping records, making
wise use of resources, planning/organising and goal setting are 'head'
related managerial functions. Service learning, Critical thinking,
problem solving, decision making and learning to learn were related to
our thinking processes, which we manage with our head.
Functions
of the heart are relating to people and caring. How do we relate to
people? We relate to people by accepting differences, conflict
resolutions, social skills, cooperation and communication. The second
function we do through our heart is caring. We care through nurturing
relationships, sharing, empathy and concern for others.
We give
and work through our hands. Community service, volunteering, leadership,
responsible citizenship and contributions to group effort -- are our
way giving back to society. We work through our marketable skills,
teamwork and self-motivation to get the things done.
Living and
being comes under the functions of health. Healthy lifestyle choices,
stress management, disease prevention and personal safety are our prime
concerns for better living. Self-esteem, self-responsibility, character,
managing feelings and self-discipline must be practiced without fail
for our well-being. In a nutshell, the essence of life skills is share
well, care well and fare well. Things to do everyday
Follow these ten golden rules and enjoy every moment of living.
~ Greet your family members first thing
in the morning. If you are not used to this, they will be surprised with
your sudden and nice gesture.
~ Greet your peers, subordinates
and boss once you enter the office. Smile at even the 'security'
personnel standing at the gate, who takes care of your safety.
~ Greet your friends along the way and do not ignore them.
~ Continously
reciprocate to breed communication. If you do not reciprocate at least
with a 'thanks' when you get information or a source on your online
network or your offline network, you will not be remembered for a long
time. If you are not remembered, you are out of your network.
~ Be a proactive listener and empathise with others to command respect.
~ While
talking to others, your voice, tone and tenor must be audible and
soothing. It should not be aggressive or in a shouting mode.
~ Dress
well to suit your profession and to create positive vibes in your
workplace. If you are a sales representative, do not go out with
printed shirts and jeans, which may turn down your customer.
~ Political and religious comments must be avoided at all costs in the workplace, when you are in a group.
~ Your communication should not provoke others.
~ Do not speak ill of others if you can help it.
