3 Soft Skills that Foster Leadership and Growth in the Workplace
Imagine yourself as a hiring manager for a quickly-growing company. Stuck staring at a neverending list of resumes, they all start to blend together: proficiency in data analysis, SEO, cloud computing, etc. How on earth can you or anyone else be expected to differentiate between two potential employees when they all share the same technical knowledge? Thankfully, common practice suggests holding interviews to determine what separates good candidates from great ones – enter interpersonal skills.
While technical proficiencies help a candidate get his or her foot in the door, interpersonal skills, or soft skills, are often what determine whether or not they’ll find success. Technical skills can be easily learned through external sources, where social skills are highly coveted intangibles that are cultivated through life experiences. The list of qualities that a good employee and potential leader should embody is immeasurable, but today I will highlight three of those key qualities that are sure to foster growth in the workplace.
Teamwork
The business world is an inherently social world that brings together people from all sorts of backgrounds; because of this, professionals who view coworkers as complements rather than competition are equipped to thrive in a group setting. A team of like-minded people leaving their egos behind and banding together to work towards a central goal by bringing their knowledge and skills to the table inspires creativity and learning for the group as a whole. Working as a team also sharpens conflict resolution skills and builds trust between coworkers – if a person can’t work as a part of a team or even get along with other employees, odds are that person won’t be an effective worker and might not last very long.
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford
Adaptability
The landscape of today’s average workplace is one that constantly transforms to maintain prosperity and relevancy. It’s crucial for an employee in pursuit of becoming indispensable to be comfortable working both individually and as a part of a larger entity. In the startup world specifically, it is incredibly likely that positions will be fluid and will require employees to manage a wide variety of responsibilities – one could write copy, cold call clients, and review operational policies all in the same day. If you’re able to prove that you can roll with the punches and competently address problems as they arise, employers will notice the substantial amount of value that you are providing and will be hard-pressed to let you go.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is becoming more and more prevalent among top-performing professionals. Being able to adequately perceive, understand, and manage one’s emotions and actions immediately increases the likelihood of finding success in the workplace. Identifying both your own and your coworkers’ strengths, weaknesses, and emotional makeup is essential – it’s impossible to improve a colleague’s well-being or sense of self without first analyzing how they operate on an emotional level.
One of my dad’s favorite pieces of wisdom focuses on how to be a good listener: “seek to understand before seeking to be right.” Good listeners are surprisingly hard to come by – it happens fairly often in a conversation where one party is already thinking about what they want to say next without concentrating on what’s being said. When people are getting something off of their chest sometimes they are looking for concrete advice, but other times people just need the release of tension. It isn’t an easy task, but displaying empathy and emotional understanding helps build strong relationships and is a great way to foster growth within a company.
Mastering these three qualities as a company is bound to have business operations firing on all cylinders because everyone is on the same page and in line with the culture of the business. Culture is an incredibly important feature of a company’s success – one that is facilitated by hiring great candidates that demonstrate a capacity for teamwork, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and many other admirable qualities. For business owners and hiring managers working to build something prosperous, it’s imperative to be able to communicate a clear vision of the goals they are working to achieve. In order to make that a reality, it’s just as crucial to assemble a team of professionals that have the tools to manifest that vision.