Are soft skills really necessary?
So what?
You need soft skills. There is no doubt about it. Developing and having soft skills allow you to:
- Have less bickering and fighting with your spouse or partner;
- Get people to do what you want;
- Land and keep a dream job; and
- Get a pay rise.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are non-technical, non job-specific, transferable, interpersonal, people skills. They are different from hard skills in that hard skills are measurable and definable. Hard skills are specific to jobs or tasks and able to be learned through formal education and on-the-job training.
As much as soft skills are universal, they are difficult to measure and define. Lesser known soft skills that you don’t come across are:
- Connecting those that are around you with others;
- Ability to write;
- Conversing in a meaningful and thoughtful way; and
- Displaying and using emotional intelligence to others’ advantage.
Why are soft skills important?
Soft skills are the foundation of how we deal with, treat, communicate and get along with people even with difficult ones. They are equally (arguably even more) important than hard skills. Soft skills complement and even enhance your hard skills whereas the scenario normally doesn’t pan out.
Say you are a bank teller. You are amazing at the hard skills that being a bank teller requires such as counting money and writing cheques but you can’t say the same about your communication skills. How easy would it be for your colleague who is a people person to go over to the money counter on the other hand, how hard would it be for you to develop your communication skills?
Focus on your strengths
What soft skills do you have and which ones do you think you are good at? Ask your family members and colleagues to see if they align. Regardless of what soft skills you have, it is the simplest to focus on your stronger traits and let them overshadow your weaker counterparts. You can take time to develop skills that you desire but focus on your stronger ones first and let those shine. You will get further in life.
Going back to the bank teller example, you are in the wrong field if you are a bank teller with no communication skills. You should consider getting a new job that matches your strengths. You will be happier. Trust me.
My experience
I’m going to be honest (as always). I don’t have the best soft skills. I prefer being at home with my wife and our kids. I tend to avoid groups and crowds of people. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m an introvert. Regardless, I don’t think I give myself enough opportunities to display my soft skills, let alone improve them. This is hard to avoid due to our vision for our business. Our business is about helping people simplify their lives. This is where my wife shines. She loves creating connections and building rapport with our Executives.
You will get more blog posts from me compared to my wife because of this reason. I prefer to sit in the background work away whereas my wife would always prefer being out and about and being the face of YourLifeEA. In a way, she could have been the one that wrote this post. You might get insights and her thoughts over at Dynamic Duo. Who knows?
What now?
- Focus on your top 3 soft skills that you have.
- Let those overshadow your weaker ones.
- Leading the Unleadable by Alan Willett may help you develop soft skills.