Lessons About Soft Skills from Peggy Klaus
My last entry discussed the importance of recognizing your unique skill set, so I want to take a moment to highlight adaptive skills often referred to as soft skills or emotional intelligence competencies. Peggy Klaus, a nationally acclaimed Fortune 500 communication and leadership coach is a friend and mentor of mine and I am a big fan of her book: The Hard Truth about Soft Skills: Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They’d Learned Sooner (Collins, February 2008, paperback).
Quite often people brush off the soft skills as the touchy feely people skills that serious professionals don’t need. Nothing could be farther from the truth! The soft skills include abilities and traits such as self-awareness, initiative, time management, empathy, political astuteness, integrity and many more.
Straight from Peggy – here are some of the top soft skills lessons she teaches in her book:
- Knowing yourself is as important as knowing how to do the job.
- Learn when to stick and when to shift or the details will hang you.
- Your procrastination is trying to tell you something.
- Get smart about asking dumb questions.
- You don’t need to be everyone’s best friend—that’s what dogs are for.
- Know where to draw the line between self-improvement and self-destruction.
- When it comes to gossip, learn the art of deflection.
- Keep your visibility when you’re not face-to-face.
- Don’t take it personally.
- Stop stereotypes from sinking you.
- You’re the boss, stupid, that’s why they hang on your every word.
- Get out of your own way.
I have bookshelves and files full of favorite resources that I will share with you to empower your journey of career success and satisfaction. Peggy’s book is a staple that I recommend to all my students and private clients. www.bettersoftskills.com Enjoy!
February 23, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
I am so in agreement with all the soft skills you mentioned and not just for work but for life. Everything you said translates into our relationship with ourself, our world and others. When it comes to any relationship, and business relationships are relationships, I like to say to avoid the three P’s: Procrastination, Personalization and Perfectionism. I think it could actually be 4 if you add Projection to the mix. All undermining character traits that should be examined during the 1st soft skill process of ‘Knowing yourself is as important as knowing how to do the job’. I would venture to add, maybe even more important since unless you are in research, jobs involve relating to people.
Great site, great stuff, I will definitely pass it along to my clients and friends. Brava!!
Dr. Stephanie Rasband