Soft Skills, Hard Skills, Importance of Soft Skills, Important Soft Skills and their definitions | Asad Ali

Soft Skills

Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attribute,[1] social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients among others that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured, such as typing, writing, math, reading and the ability to use software programs. By contrast, soft skills are less tangible and harder to quantify, such as etiquette, getting along with others, listening and engaging in small talk.

Importance of the Soft Skills

Soft skills are an essential part of finding, attracting, and retaining clients. Highly-developed presentation skills, networking abilities, and etiquette awareness can help you win new clients and gain more work from existing clients. Honing your abilities to resolve conflicts, solve problems, and provide excellent customer service can lead to stronger relationships with colleagues, vendors, and other professional contacts. Ultimately, strong soft skills can help you gain confidence—an invaluable trait in the business world.

On the other hand, a lack of soft skills can limit your potential, or even be the downfall of your business. By developing strong leadership, teamwork, and communication abilities, you can run projects more smoothly, deliver results that please everyone, and even positively influence your personal life by improving how you interact with others.

Important Soft Skills

Cognitive Flexibility

The mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts, and to think about multiple concepts simultaneously.

Negotiation

A negotiation is a strategic discussion that resolves an issue in a way that both parties find acceptable.

Service Orientation

Service orientation is the ability and desire to anticipate, recognize and meet other’s need, sometimes even before those needs are articulated.

Judgment & Decision Making

An ability, capacity, or faculty to make considered and effective decisions, come to sensible conclusions, perceive and distinguish relationships, understand situations, and form objective opinions especially in matters that affect action.

Emotional Intelligence

It is the capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one’s goal(s).

Coordinating with others

To work with others to arrange the work flow; to assist others in executing a complex task; to provide assistance in achieving a common effect.

People Management

Managing people development, their work activities and their performance with the goal of optimizing efficient use of talent.

Creativity and Creative thinking

Creativity/Creative Thinking is the bringing into being of something which did not exist before, either as a product, a process or a thought.

Critical Thinking

It is the objective analysis of facts to form a judgment.

Complex Problem Solving

Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and important solutions.