UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS,
AKOKA, LAGOS.
Sulaiman Uthman Ola
Uthy4luv@gmail.com
07035536056
Self Management Soft Skills
Self management skills
address how you perceive yourself and others, manage your emotions, and react
to adverse situations. Only when you build an inner excellence can you have a
strong mental and emotional foundation to succeed in your career.
1.
Growth
mindset – Looking at any situations, as an opportunity for
you to learn, grow and change for the better. Focusing your attention on
improving yourself instead of changing others or blame anyone.
2.
Self
awareness - Knowing and understanding what drives, angers,
motivates, embarrasses, frustrates and inspire you. Being able to observe
yourself objectively in difficult situation and understand how your perception
about yourself, others and the situation are driving your actions.
3.
Emotion
regulation – Being able to manage your emotions, especially
negative ones, at work (e.g. anger, frustration, embarrassment) so you can
think clearly and objectively, and act accordingly.
4.
Self
– confidence – Believing in yourself and ability to
accomplish anything. Knowing that all you need is within you now. ‘‘Those who
believe in themselves have access to unlimited power’’ – wisdom from Kung Fu
Panda
5.
Stress
management – Being able to stay healthy, calm and balanced in
any challenging situations. Knowing how to reduce your stress level will
increase your productivity, prepare you for new challenges and support your
physical and emotional health, all of which you need for a fulfilling,
successful career.
6.
Resilience
– Being able bounced back after a disappointment or set back, big or small, and
continues to move onward and upward.
7.
Skill
to forgive and forget -
Being able to forgive yourself for making a mistake, forgive other that
wronged you, and moved on without
“Mental or emotional baggage.” Freeing your mind from the past so you
can focus 100% of your mental energy on our near and long time career goals.
8.
Persistence
and perseverance – Being able to maintain the same
energy and dedication in your effort to learn, do, and achieve in your career
despite difficulties, failures, and oppositions.
9.
Patience
– Being able to step back in a seemingly rushed or crisis situation, so you can
think clearly and take action that fulfils your long term goals.
10.
Perceptiveness
– Giving attention and understanding to the unspoken cues and underlying nuance
of other people’s communication and actions. Often times, we are too busy
thinking about ourselves and what we are saying, we leave little room to watch
and understand others’ action and intentions. If you misinterpret other’s
intention, you can easily encounter difficulties in dealing with people and not
even know why.
People
skill address how to best interact and work with others so you can build
meaningful work relationships, influence others perception of you and your
work, and motivate their actions. I have split them into two sections – Conversional
and Tribal
Conversional
- List of people skills you find in most job descriptions and you will be
accessed on some or all of these in your performance reviews depending on your
level.
1. Communication skills
– Being able to actively listen to others and articulate your idea in written
and verbally to any audience in a way where you are heard and you achieve the
goals you intend with that communication.
2. Teamwork skills
– Being able to work effectively with anyone with different skill sets,
personalities, work styles, or motivation level to achieve a better team
result.
3.
Interpersonal
relationship skills - Being able to work effectively at
building trust, finding common ground, having empathy, and ultimately building
good relationships with people at work and in your network. This skill is
closely related to communication skills. As Maya Angelou said “I have learned people will forget what you
said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you
make them feel.”
4. Presentation skills
– Effectively presenting your work results and ideas formally to an audience
that captivate their attention, engages their input, and motivate them to act
in accordance to your desire outcome. While presenting skills is a form of
communication skills, i decided to list it separately given the ability to
present plays a huge role in any business profession especially as you move p
in your career.
5.
Meeting
management skills – Leading a meeting to efficiently and
effectively reach productive results. At least 50% of meetings today are a
waste of time.
6. Facilitating skills
– Being able to coordinate and solicit well represented opinions and feedback
from a group with diverse perspectives to reach a common, best solution.
7. Selling skills
– Building buy – in to an idea, a decision, an action, a product, or a service.
This is not just for people in sales.
8. Management skills
– Creating and motivating a high performing team with people of varied skills,
personalities, motivations, and work styles.
9. Leadership skills
– Defining and communicating vision and ideas that inspires others to follow
with commitment and dedication.
10. Mentoring / coaching skills
– Providing constructive wisdom, guidance, and/or feedback with commitment and
dedication.
“Tribal” – list of people skills that you will not find in any job
descriptions. They are also essential to yours career success. I call it tribal
because they are more “insider knowledge” that you gain from work experience or
from mentors. Some people can go through their entire career and not be aware
of some of these skills.
11. Managing upwards
– Proactively managing your relationship with your boss, his expectations of
your work, and his perception of your performance. Whether you are challenged,
given opportunities, or recognized at work heavily depends on your ability to
communicate, manage expectations, and build a good relationship with your boss.
12. Self-promotion skills
– Proactively and subtly promoting your skills and work results to people of
power or influence in your organization and network. It is not enough that your
boss knows you do great work. You need to subtly build your reputation with all
key people that can influence your performance review. This is because hard
work alone does not guarantee success.
13. Skills in dealing with difficult
personalities – Being able to still achieve the work
result needed while working with someone whom you find difficult.
14. Skills in dealing with
difficult/unexpected situations – Being able to stay
calm and still are effective when faced with an unexpected or difficult
situation. This includes being able to thinks on your feet and articulate
thoughts in an organized manner even when you are not prepared for the
discussion or situation you are in.
15. Savvy in handling office politics
– Being able to understand and proactively deals with unspoken nuances of
office and people dynamics so you can protect yourself from unfairness as well
as further your career. Office politics is a fact of life. If you don’t choose
o play, it can play you.
16. Influence / persuasion skills
– Being able to influence perspectives or decision making but still have the
people you influence think they make their own minds.
17. Negotiation skills
– Being able to understand the other side’s motivations and leverage and reach
a win – win resolution that you find favourably, satisfy both sides, and maintain
relationships for future interactions.
18. Networking skills
– Being able to be interested in business a conversation that motivates people
to want to be in your network. The bigger and stronger the network you have the
more easily you can get things done (e.g., find a job, get advice, find
business partners, find customers, etc)
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