Everyone can benefit from developing soft skills!

Career AdviceCareer

If you want a successful career, you need to focus on your social skills.

"She's a people person." You've heard a colleague, manager, friend or relative described that way and you know exactly what it means. This person eases through the workday like a soft summer breeze, feathers rarely ruffled, hackles seldom raised.

13 essential people skills:

• Listening
• Communicating
• Empathy
• Relational Intelligence
• Convincing others
• Decisiveness
• Teamwork
• Collaboration
• Objective Effectiveness
• Solving Problems
• Conflict Resolution
• Negotiation
• Tolerance

What's their secret to success? "Interpersonal skills are commonly referred to as 'people skills' or 'social skills,'" said Roberta Matuson, president of Matuson Consulting and author of Can We Talk? Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work.

What Are People Skills? "In short, people skills are the abilities that help us work well with others," said John Waldmann, CEO and founder of Homebase, a company that makes a time-tracking and employee scheduling app. "They are the capabilities we use to communicate, solve problems, be a part of a team, and move people and projects forward," Waldmann said. It is important to develop your people skills if you want to grow into a leadership role with greater responsibility.

In the early days of Homebase, Waldmann said he found it difficult to pitch the business, but he got better with practice.

It is hard to be good at one people skill without being good at the others. For example, communication involves not only speaking and body language, but also listening. Emotional intelligence--the ability to comprehend and handle emotions--is necessary for many work-related skills, such as listening, decision making, problem solving, collaboration, and teamwork, says Matuson.

According to Jill Bowman, director of people at New York-based fintech company Octane, people skills such as active listening, collaboration, empathy, team building, negotiation and leadership develop over time and can be improved with practice and training.

Communication:

"People skills such as teamwork, conflict resolution and negotiation are crucial to building other people/soft skills," said Jamie Johnson a career advisor. Johnson noted that communication skills are important in order to interact with others and build positive relationships, both personal and professional.

"If you have the self-confidence and conviction to make yourself heard, you can increase collaboration with others and be an advocate for your own success." - Meighan (Meg) Newhouse, Inspirant Group.

Successful communication requires both verbal and nonverbal skills, said Meighan Newhouse, CEO and cofounder at Inspirant Group.

Newhouse said that having self confidence and being able to make yourself heard is important in order to increase collaboration with others and be successful. The best way to develop this skill is to push through fear and just do it.

According to Newhouse, nonverbal skills like making eye contact, having proper body language, and using gestures can make people feel more engaged and comfortable.

Listening:

Talking to someone whose mind is elsewhere can be frustrating. Active listening involves engaging with the person you are talking to, rather than just listening with one ear while formulating what to say in response.

"Active listening is crucial in the workplace, where people must interact in order to overcome challenges," said Mike Grossman, CEO of GoodHire, a company that runs background checks on prospective employees.

According to Grossman, strong active listening also entails asking specific questions about the content of the speaker's remarks, in addition to conveying through verbal affirmations that you are attentive without disrupting the speaker's thought process.

Relational Intelligence:

"Relational intelligence is the ability to successfully connect with people and build strong, long-lasting relationships," said Adam Bandelli, an organizational psychologist who has pioneered the concept and written a book, Relational Intelligence: The Five Essential Skills You Need to Build Life-Changing Relationships, about it.

It is the interpersonal skill that encompasses establishing rapport, understanding others, embracing individual differences, developing trust, cultivating influence and serving others.

To establish rapport, you must first make a strong impression, find similarities between you and the other person, and create a safe and fun space.

To understand others, one must be aware of their own emotions and be able to empathize with others, said Bandelli. Additionally, it is important to be curious and inquisitive about others, as well as actively listen to them. Understanding others requires time and effort.

Embracing individual differences means understanding and accepting that people might have different opinions from you, and those differences, be they sexual orientation, gender, ethnicities, race, religion or socioeconomic background, are what makes teams strong.

Developing trust requires commitment, consistency, character, courage and integrity. According to Bandelli, leaders need to continually deposit into a bank account of trust to build a sense of camaraderie and commitment from their people. Once trust is gained, it should not be used to manipulate, control or use people.

Cultivating influence requires having a positive and measurable effect on others, whether they are teammates, subordinates, or the entire organization. Developing this aspect of relational intelligence can be done by finding a mentor with great interpersonal skills, Bandelli said.

"Great leaders know that serving their people leads to higher levels of performance, goals and objectives are attained, KPIs are delivered, and organizations achieve great financial success and profitability," Bandelli said.

Convincing others:

According to Johnson of University of Phoenix, interpersonal/soft skills are an important tool in responding to challenges and questions, as well as offering evidence and responses.

The art of persuasion requires gaining a new perspective, convincing someone to your side, or "winning" an argument, said Johnson.

Empathy:

"Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand how people feel and react, monitor your own state, and use this to make good judgments and solve problems," said Donna McGeorge, a productivity coach based in Australia.

Developing emotional intelligence is key to building strong workplace relationships that will help you and your team achieve your goals.

The building blocks of emotional intelligence are self-regulation, which is managing your feelings, emotions and behavior in healthy ways, including adapting when necessary; self-awareness, or knowing your strengths and weaknesses; other-awareness, which is picking up emotional cues and group dynamics and having empathy for the needs of others; building and maintaining relationships via clear communication, McGeorge said.

Decisiveness:

According to McGeorge, decision making is a process that helps us select the best option from a set of available alternatives. Decision-making is often irrational, she added, citing a 2000 study by social psychologists Jennifer Lerner and Dacher Kelter. The two found that “fearful people made pessimistic judgments of future events and angry people made optimistic judgments,” the report said. "We are more likely to make poor decisions when we are not in full control of our emotions," McGeorge said.

According to McGeorge, information overload can lead to the illusion of knowledge, incomplete information, or even poor decision-making when under pressure.

Teamwork:

Working together effectively as a team requires strong communication skills, the ability to support and respect teammates, the ability to think and learn out loud, and the ability to listen carefully and with an open mind.

"When done correctly, there is almost a magical combination of special gifts, talents, and skills that can give a company a competitive edge and make employees feel good about their work," McGeorge said.

Collaboration:

"In order to be successful, employers often want you to be able to rely on and help others to achieve a common goal," said Shiv Gupta, CEO of Incrementors, an inbound marketing company.

Objective Effectiveness:

According to Lisa Bahar, an adjunct professor of psychology and a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical counselor, this interpersonal skill combines assertion and the ability to say no.

An example of objective effectiveness would be if you were to describe a situation, express your feelings and opinions, ask for what you want, and then help the other person understand that what you want would be beneficial for both of you.

Solving problems:

According to Amy Zimmerman, chief people officer and cofounder of leadership consultancy PeopleCo, these skills depend on the ability to use analytical and creative thinking to find solutions.

Conflict Resolution:

The process of mediation allows parties in conflict to work with a neutral third party in order to come to an agreement.

Negotiation:

This critical skill involves being able to listen to the other party, understand their perspective, as well as what is important to them, said Andrea Ippolito, CEO and founder of Ithaca a telehealth platform focused on lactation, child nutrition and on-demand support for new parents.

Successful negotiators identify the zone of possible agreement, or ZOPA. This is the common area on which both sides agree. “By understanding this zone, you can meet somewhere in the middle to accomplish what each party needs,” Ippolito said.

According to Joe Vu, digital marketing manager at QuickFi (an app to simplify business-equipment financing), high-quality negotiating skills help you to get internal and external stakeholders to agree with what you are trying to communicate.

Tolerance:

It can be challenging to tolerate others who think or behave differently than you, especially in the workplace. According to Sam Cohen, founder of Gold Tree Consulting, a growth marketing agency this can be attributed to individual disagreements or personal biases. Tolerance can be developed through exposure to different perspectives and modes of thinking, as well as through experience in handling change.