6 Reasons Soft Skills Are Needed in A Successful Business
Performing the technical aspects of a job are important, but in order to become an admired leader or trusted employee, soft skills are required. Soft skills are behaviors, personality traits and work habits such as critical thinking, perseverance, communication, and collaboration that help people prosper at work. These skills are tough to measure, but critical to success.
Businesses are taking notice of the importance of positive relationships at work. Many large corporations are investing in the creation of social spaces that encourage frequent social interaction. These environments foster increased communication and stronger social bonds, the combination of which translates into overall increased productivity and positive workplace culture. This blog takes a closer look at the power of soft skills and why they are needed in the workplace.
Why Soft Skills Have Become So Important
As more and more job activities become automated, soft skills, which cannot yet be replicated by machines, have become more important. Soft skills — such as empathy, emotional intelligence, kindness, mindfulness, adaptability, integrity, optimism, self-motivation, grit and resilience — have become crucial success factors.
The ability to adapt and learn a new way of conducting a particular role is more valuable given how fast business is evolving. With digital transformation in high gear, change will be a constant factor in the workplace. We have seen job roles transform into something completely different while others have disappeared completely. Soft skills are difficult to quantify, but they play a critical role in performance and productivity. They are key to building relationships and creating opportunities for advancement. They help facilitate human connection.
An MIT study found that top performers have a superpower: happiness. When you’re happy, your brain releases serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. Not only do these neurotransmitters make you feel good, they also connect the learning centers of your brain, sparking creativity and innovation. They unleash your potential to solve problems and spot opportunities that otherwise would have been missed. Essentially, happiness makes you smarter.
What are the Most Valuable Soft Skills?
Soft skills are unquantifiable professional attributes. This can make it difficult for hiring managers and others involved in the hiring process to assess them in potential hires, making them an important but elusive set of skills to look for. Soft skills enable employees to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.
Some of the most valuable soft skills are:
- Attitude
- Networking
- Problem solving
- Communication (both listening and speaking skills)
- Work ethic
- Teamwork
- Leadership styles/qualities
- Empathy
- Time management
- Decision making
- Critical thinking
- Conflict resolution
6 Reasons Why Soft Skills are Needed To Run a Successful Business:
- Healthy Work Environment – Empathy in the workplace is just as important for leaders as listening and communicating. Empathizing with the challenges faced by employees nurtures a supportive and positive work environment and helps to eliminate unhealthy competition. Employees are empowered and prepared to take risks and work together to move the organization forward.
- Facilitate Positive Change – Clear communication within the organization is critical to achieving and aligning goals. An effective and open communication channel creates efficiency and productivity. Employees seek solutions and tackle problems that bring about positive change within the company.
- Improved Decision Making – Soft skills such as listening, problem solving, and attitude are critical for CEOs and managers that are burdened with the responsibility to make decisions that impact the entire organization on a daily basis. Team members must feel heard and valued in order to make sure innovative ideas are given a voice.
- Improve Customer Service and Increase Sales – Active listening and problem solving are critical in order to effectively meet the needs of customers. Engaging with customers with compassion and positivity will improve all aspects of customer service.
- Improved Employee Retention – When leaders focus on boosting employee’s soft skills, retention rates increase. Employees feel valued and realize the organization cares about their professional growth. This ultimately leads to committed and engaged employees that are devoted to the success of the organization.
- Highly Transferable – Soft skills like creativity, responsibility and excellent communication skills can be applied to any job.
Creating a True Competitive Advantage
Communication, relationships, and connectivity are critical in today’s business landscape. Recruiting and retaining employees with the appropriate blend of soft skills involves a measured and strategic approach, as well as time and patience. It is important to learn more about your potential candidates and current employees as humans interacting with other people.
Good relationships are the key to happiness and productivity in an organization. Happily, the ability to improve nearly every relationship is well within your reach, because the formula to success begins with self-awareness.
The biggest reason we have unhealthy relationships is because we misunderstand our differences. The way in which we see the world, set expectations, and react to difficult situations is so instinctive, we have to make a conscious effort to step back and consider how somebody else could possibly react differently to the same set of circumstances. To truly make the most of our relationships with our colleagues, we need to learn how to be as emotionally intelligent as we are intellectually competent.
To create a true competitive advantage, we need to respect our cohort’s differences and lean in their directions. By understanding the roots of others’ behavior and adapting your own actions to match them, you can clear away their resistance and collaboration becomes easier.
By adjusting your behavior toward the styles of others, and recognizing critical soft skills in each employee, you become a catalyst in facilitating their greatest contributions, which is the essence of leadership. In our next blog we will take a closer look at how organizations can use DISC to learn what makes individuals tick, so you can interact with them more effectively. Our proven method helps leaders discover what really drives them, so they can maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Our DISC styles identify others’ behavior styles so you can choose the best way to connect with them.
Velocity Advisory Group believes that when leadership styles are aligned and employees are empowered, the path becomes clear, and teams have the tools they need to create a high-performing culture. The organization shifts from reactivity to proactivity, reducing conflict and accelerating success. To learn more about how soft skills help organizations cut through the noise to align and transform their organizations, contact us today.
