Emotional intelligence (EI) is fast becoming a sought after and important concept in psychology and human resources. EI requires the attainment of soft skills as a condition for success in both one’s personal and professional life. Studies have shown that people who are friendly, optimistic and sociable have more rewarding interpersonal relations. Being able to deal with people effectively may be just as equally important as having great technical skills. The good news is even busy executives can hone their soft skills.
Inducing Confidence And Building Trust
One invaluable soft skill is confidence. Being self-confident is a must for success, yet it must come with a dose of humility. Confidence should never take the form of arrogance, or you will make your subordinates reject and distrust you. Confidence may also be considered as a healthy attitude towards life situations. In difficult times or in moments of crisis, feeling confident and inducing this sensation in others is crucial.
Motivating Colleagues
Motivational skills are another soft skill that executives should practice more. In order to gain the respect of your employees, you need to know that having a job and being paid cannot represent the only motivation for your employees. Executives with bad motivational skills rarely offer positive feedback to subordinates, lest their employees may forget what their “place” is. When someone feels their work is appreciated, they have one more reason to work harder. People do not work only for money, but also for enjoying a good working environment where they have autonomy, become masterful and have a purpose. Being able to positively motivate people you work with is a compulsory quality of a good manager.
Delegation
Delegation means sharing leadership with others. Many business owners, especially small business owners, fall into the trap of doing everything by themselves. They feel they can’t trust other people to do certain tasks or they can’t leave an employee to work unsupervised. The result will be a busy, exhausted executive and employees which feel scrutinized and distrusted all the time. Delegation goes hand in hand with mentorship. You are not really good at what you do if you can’t teach others how to do it. Attract valuable people around you, train them and start giving them a free hand when possible. Good employees love feeling empowered. When you delegate tasks to reliable people, they appreciate your trust and work hard. Moreover, you will be less busy and have time to focus on other important aspects, too.
Patience
We all love immediate results and any business owner likes to see their investments returning soon. Unfortunately, you can’t expect things to work that fast. When you run a business, you will need to exercise patience all the time: when you have invested money in training, when you are trying to establish a strategic partnership with someone or when you want your social media strategy to start working. Brilliant ideas will often make you feel enthusiastic, but you also need the patience to apply them consistently.
Handling A Crisis And Decision-making
Crises are the perfect moment to exercise your decision-making abilities. There is a famous saying that any crisis represents an opportunity. In these situations, the decisions you make have a huge impact on outcomes. Usually, it is about choosing the lesser evil or, at other times, you need to find a bright idea and make a breakthrough when the situation seems impossible. Being an executive will sometimes compel you to take risks and to make quick and sound decisions.
Team Building
Being a good team player does not necessarily mean you are a good team builder. Team building is a major area of organizational culture research and it is half science, half art. You need to find the right people and motivate them to work together. Team building is about strengthening relationships and determining employees to be result-oriented at the same time. This can be difficult when people with conflicting personalities meet, and you need to model the team in such a way that will enable each of its members to contribute and cooperate. Finding complementary skills among your time and not hiring clones of yourself helps greatly.
Weaving These Soft Skills In Your Daily Work
Incorporating soft skills training in the daily activity of a busy executive seems almost impossible. Nevertheless, many times the secret to success is to stop and take some time to reflect on what you are doing well and what you are doing wrong. This is also the case of soft skills. They are not an asset you can buy, but you can cultivate them.
