Soft and social skills are increasingly becoming the hard skills for today’s youth. While your technical skills may get your foot in the door of opportunities, your people skills are what open most of the doors to come. Your work ethic, attitude, communication skills, emotional intelligence and a host of other personal attributes are the skills that ensure your holistic development.
Soft and social skills are interpersonal skills that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. They characterise your relationship with others. They enable you to work well with groups, solve problems, manage time, and take personal responsibility for your work.
If you are a high school student, these skills will allow you to stay on the top of the class, will give you a confidence boost and will enhance your personality, which means better chances of admission to a good college. If you are in college, these skills will enable you to build your profile and again, they will polish your personality and set you apart from the candidates, while applying for your dream job. If you are a working professional, you need these skills to be on top of your work, manage time efficiently, take decisions that’ll benefit your company, manage your team, maintain a pleasant work culture and stand out in whatever it is that you do.
Here are top three social and soft skills, and why they are important: Communication Skills — Effective communication skills are the ability to express yourself clearly and concisely, in a way that things are understood and done. A person with good communication skills can read other people’s behaviour, compromise to reach an agreement, avoid and resolve conflict, and adapt to new and different situations. And don’t forget that it’s a two-way street, so being a good listener is absolutely vital.
Whether it is about getting elected as the president of a school club or about getting your dream job, it will always help you move closer to your goals and aspirations. Good communicators can explain their thoughts and ideas to others in ways that make sense and are easy to understand. You will be able to tell your supervisor what you need to do your job well. You will be able to communicate with your team to make sure you are all working together towards completion of your group project at college. If you are in a business, your communication skills can make the difference between a satisfied customer and an angry one!
Time Management — Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time allocated to specific activities, so as to increase efficiency and productivity. Time management is important no matter what age or stage you are at. Students need it to stick to project deadlines, housewives need it to effectively juggle all their tasks, working professionals need it to deliver good quality work prior to deadlines — more than a soft skill, time management is a life skill.
Leadership Skills — Leadership skills are the strengths and abilities in an individual that help in overseeing processes, guiding initiatives and steering their team members towards achievement of goals. An effective leader creates a motivational vision of the future, inspires people to work towards it, manages delivery of the vision and builds a team so that it is more effective in achieving it.
Any team or organisation takes the personality of their leaders, which is why it is absolutely vital for a team to have a good leader. Good soft and social skills will help you at each stage and age of your life, not only within the office or classroom walls, but also beyond.
