Four significant ways for personality development and soft skills

What are personality development and soft skills?

Why is it so important?

How does it help in your career growth?

Are there any possible ways for personality development and soft skills?

If all these questions are lingering in your mind and you wanted to explore them, then you have landed on the right page.

Building your skills, cultivating your potential, developing new skill sets, dealing with your inadequacies, and converting them into benefits are collectively called personal development.

In a nutshell, personality is the pointer of your behavior in your day-to-day life. It deals with, how you make decisions or work on a team and manage difficult times in your life or how strongly you’re upcoming with your failures etc.

Man’s life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but the development of his self.” ―B. R. Ambedkar

As rightly said by Dr.Ambedkar, you need to push yourself to become a better version of yourself that signifies progress in your personal growth.

If you have made a strong personality, you would be capable of recognizing your strengths and speak more clearly and persuasively.

Above all, you would feel more confident and make good decisions on your own.

Here are the four important ways for personality development and soft skills you should develop for attaining personal development and to prosper in your career.

Communication skills

Communication plays a crucial role in deciding one’s personality.

Yes, it not only includes speaking effectively but includes listening and writing as well.

As far as communication is concerned, the seven C’s of communication play a vital role. 

You should communicate more clearly, concisely and your sentence or statement should be in a complete form.

If you keep on talking in a more elaborated manner, people might get bored. So its better you should speak more briefly and correctly. 

Say, for instance, whatever you say, you should have evidence and proof. It should have concrete results. The remaining two c’s are courtesy and candidness.

While communicating, you should use some polite and more pleasing words. Otherwise, you might sound rude. 

It indicates courtesy.

The last C that you need to remember is candidness. 

It means whatever you speak, it should be straight to the point. At the same time, you should be outspoken.

Now that you understood the importance of communication, right?

You might be asking me how to improve them? Don’t panic. There are always several ways to improve them. 

How to improve your communication skills?

All you need to do is to follow these simple and most effective tips which lead to personality development and soft skills learning. It will work wonders.

(i) Make active listening a habit

Now you must be wondering why you need to be a good listener.

Good listeners are always good communicators. 

The most vital aspect of communication is that you need to be a good listener.

Listening means not just hearing. You need to give full attention to the person who is communicating.

Starting from their body language, you should observe all aspects of their nonverbal signals also.

You have to observe those who communicate with you. Like, whether those people avoid eye contact or have open or closed postures and are they fumbling with their hands? etc.

In a nutshell, active listening is responding positively to what others say and initiating follow-up queries to demonstrate that you are paying attention.

(ii) Improve your comprehension of nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication includes your facial expression and your body language.

When interacting with someone in a professional context, pay attention to your facial expressions and body language.

You’ll need to improve both what you speak and how you express it to improve your verbal communication.

You should not deliver your message rudely or unpleasantly.

You have to impress someone with your nonverbal communication. 

When meeting someone for the first time, making eye contact, restricting hand movements, and maintaining decent posture would help you go a long way.

(iii) Control your own emotions

It’s necessary to control your emotions and communicate them properly in contextual for effective communication and your well-being.

Permitting powerful emotions to intrude into a professional situation inappropriately might lead to misunderstandings and conflict.

(iv) Make public speaking a habit

It might sound something intimidating. But there is no better method to improve your communication abilities than to participate in public speaking events.

Whether speaking to a large group or one-on-one, good speakers can express their emotions accurately.

Speaking in front of a group will highlight your strengths and limitations while also forcing you to build excellent communication skills.

Alternatively, you can practice in front of a mirror.

Similarly, you can also use some mobile applications to work on your skills.

Record your speech, get through it over and over again. It is a better option to improve your communication.

Adaptability skills

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it is the one that is most adaptable to change- Charles Darwin

Adaptability is one of the most sought-after “human characteristics,” often described as “soft” or “essential” skills by employers.

Adaptability refers to the ability to adjust swiftly to shifting trends, innovations, instabilities, and industry developments, among other things.

Employers expect that you should be adaptable. It is often confused with flexibility. But it is something more than that.

In simpler words, I could say, if you are adaptable, then you should come out of your comfort zone and should not make any preset conclusions like you can not do that work, or it might be difficult for you.

How to improve your adaptability skills?

Here are some ways how you can become adaptable.

(i) Change the way you think

Though change can be unpleasant and overwhelming, accept it and see it as a way to develop, grow, and progress.

Make an effort to attempt new things so that you would keep learning. 

Attempting to do new things will also help you become creative.

Accept new challenging situations and go out of your way to find them. 

Embrace criticism, even if it is upsetting at first. Make a new start.

(ii) Make it a point to take risks

It might sound intimidating, but it works wonders.

Many people ran away without attempting to take risks. 

However, taking risks is an essential factor of being adaptive.

If you are taking risks and attempting something and fail, don’t get dejected. 

Take it the right way and make it a point to learn from your mistakes.

Experiment with various tactics and concentrate on establishing a logical approach to solving typical issues.

This way, you could improve your adaptability skills.

(iii) Make learning a habit

One of the most crucial features of adaptability is that you should remain curious and keep up with current events.

You require a willingness to learn.

It’s a terrific method to learn more by asking questions.

Ensure that your queries are well-researched and addressed professionally to guarantee that you receive the most innovative responses.

In order to develop your skills, keep focusing on emerging technology in your field, attend seminars on cost-cutting while preserving performance and accuracy, and so on.

This way, you can develop your adaptability skills.

(iv) Motivate others to think outside the box

To motivate others you need to remain open-minded.

Being open-minded would be open to a wide range of thoughts, opinions, and facts.

It means that you are a positive person. it is an essential skill for critical and rational thinking.

 You have to be willing to listen to other people’s views and beliefs and contemplate the chance that you are mistaken or that your viewpoint may change.

Remaining open-minded helps you to become more adaptable to different work situations.

Leadership Qualities 

In its broadest sense, it is defined as a behavioral process that entails persuading others.

A frequent misperception is that people are born with natural leadership abilities.

The reality is that, just like every other skill, you can learn leadership qualities with effort and time.

“Leadership is an action, not a position.” Donald McGannon

You can develop your skills to become a good leader.

How to improve your Leadership Qualities?

Here are few steps to improve your leadership skills that lead to personality development.

(i) Effective Listening

One of the most prominent skills you need for developing your leadership qualities is to develop listening skills.

If you don’t have good listening skills, you won’t be successful in gaining input from others. You can’t get a picture of what your teammates like about the projects that they work on.

Listening to the team of specialists will help you to decide what you can and can not accomplish.

Maintaining eye contact, avoiding distractions, and responding immediately, are all essential for good listening.

(ii) Encouraging and Inspiring others

As a leader, you are a part of the team, and you have to encourage your teammates.

When any of your team members lack enthusiasm, you need to motivate and energize them.

Fostering a positive work atmosphere is another influential factor.

Most importantly, provide positive incentives for meeting the requirements, such as a weekly new customer goal or providing error-free work.

Most of the time, a person needs someone to understand and empathize with them. 

To become a good leader, you must understand your teammates, motivate them, believe them, and reward them.

(iii) Continual Learning

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”- John.F.Kennedy

As technology keeps on changing, you need to change yourself, learn new things and take up new challenges. 

It helps to keep your mind sharp and keep you updated.

The most effective method to become a successful leader is to continue learning a lot.

(iv) Problem Resolution

Leaders must be able to deal with troublesome people and solve issues.

If any of your teammates create a toxic environment, you must speak with them individually, identify their difficulties, and resolve them.

You must be strong, genuine, and frank.

On the other hand, always listen to their problems completely before concluding.

Team Building

Collaborating effectively in a team is critical for productivity, creativity, confidence, and longevity. 

It is simply not enough to be able to get along with others to have efficient teamwork abilities. 

It is all about people’s capacity to collaborate with others, which is critical in every industry ranging from finance to retail. 

How to improve your Team Building skills?

Here are the ways to improve teamwork skills.

(i)Define your team’s mission and goals

You have to get aligned with the goal of your project. 

Support decision-making by aligning your actions with the project’s purpose. 

Unless a team doesn’t comprehend why they’re doing and what they’re doing, the interest and excitement of team members will wane. 

So, it’s a terrific approach to go over your steps and make sure you’re on the right track to going where you need to go.

(ii) Resolve disputes

Every team experiences dispute now and then.

In order to resolve, the manner it’s handled is crucial. 

To arbitrate difficulties amongst team members, resolve disputes through conflict management.

It is highly significant to recall the team’s common goal(s) to reorient and recover after a dispute.

(iii) Define roles and responsibilities

Another crucial aspect of a successful team is having a better understanding of every team member’s responsibility.

If there is any doubt about roles, it is unlikely that teams could work together effectively.

You’ll never be able to work well with each other if you don’t realize how each person’s role differs from others.

Before beginning work, it is necessary to make sure that each team member’s role and responsibility are clearly defined.

(iv)Maintain a positive attitude and communicate well

For building up good cooperation, effective communication is a vital factor.

Successful teams communicate openly and frequently, and their members are willing to exchange ideas, brainstorm collaboratively, get opinions, and be contradicted.

At the same time, you need to create a positive mindset among your peers.

Get rid of the undesirable attitudes that occur and moving with the right attitude and positive mindset would be much favorable to work as a team.

Conclusion

For career building, soft skills provide a solid conceptual and empirical foundation.

They play a vital role in developing your entire personality, which will help you advance in your career.

These abilities will assist you in developing and refining your communication, language proficiency, business correspondence, demonstrations, collaboration, leadership, adaptability, time management, and interpersonal skills.

The strategies given in this article are the best ways for personality development and soft skill learning. It can help you enhance your personality and lead to a successful career if you practice them regularly.

cheers,

Shenbagalakshmi