In the history of mankind, things and practices generally age and they start with being prudent to becoming obsolete. An exception to this phenomenon is Soft-Skills. Earlier, the academic institutes had laid emphasis on the possession of knowledge more than the methods of obtaining or expressing it.
As it was later realised, the latter was more important than the former. For any child to be a better performer as a student, soft-skills is the most important tool. From preparation of notes, to managing time to recall the knowledge and expressing it, soft-skills is how you do them effectively.
Yes, the corporate/professional world is growing fiercely competitive exponentially with every passing day. The more you progress, the more challenging it becomes. It is like climbing a summit; the higher you climb, the more difficult it is to breath. It is indeed in a fair sense, the survival of the fittest.
However, this doesn’t mean that there is no way to deal with it. Smart-play has always been one of the best hacks. Smart people have always found their way out and one of the ways is well polished Soft-Skills.
Soft-skills in the simplest terms is the sum of social, personal and professional behaviour backed by the communication skills of a person. Soft-skills greatly affect your performance on an individual level, as a team member and even as a leader.
A person with good soft-skills has an upper hand over his/her fellow competitors:
Communication (Expressing the right way):
Knowing something is incomplete without the knowledge of presenting it. Tone, timing, selection of words, etc. are the key factors that affect the way your present your points. In fact, they are so critical that an excellent presentation can make up for even an ordinary material.
Body language:
A proactive and a welcoming body language always wins the game for you. A straight back, handshake, eye contact, etc., are well observed by people who are already at the top of this game.
A good body language has your ticket to leverage your position in rather short time.
Self-confidence:
With the above-mentioned points, your self-confidence goes up naturally and effortlessly. Also, a person with self confidence has a clear understanding of what are his/her strengths and weaknesses are. Balancing strength and weakness gives you the ideal self-confidence. Neither under confident, nor over confident.
Selling and negotiation:
When you possess top-notch soft-skills, you are always the one leading a conversation. Excellent presentation helps you represent your product or company and cutting great deals with your potential clients. Because, sometimes with great presentation, business somewhat takes a backseat.
Better team player and team leader:
A person with great soft skills is also the one with a good sense of empathy. An empath can easily share load with his/her teammate if the load is overwhelming. This is one of the key traits of a good team player. This further leads to make the person a good team leader as well. Since the leader understands well the challenges of the team members.
Soft-skills isn’t something you achieve overnight. It is a gradual process of learning and rectifying your mistakes and updating to a better version of your previous self. The sooner you start working on it, the better.
