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List of 28 Soft Skills – Business Professionals

Posted on | June 2, 2011

I saw a list of 60 soft skills that was ranked #1 organically by Google  (search = list of soft skills.)  The article was pretty good, but the actual list of 60 soft skills is quite confusing.  Here is what I mean.  The list included:

  • Ridiculous examples like Drivers’ License (#16), Being Drug Free (#21), Work Experience (#24), Understanding what the world is all about. (#53).
  • Hard Skills examples: Math (#1), Grammar (#5), Advanced Math (#18), Ability to Measure (#25), Knowledge of Fraction (#36).  How are these “soft skills”?  See my recent post on the difference of Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills
  • Basic Professionalism examples: Courtesy (#3), Good Attendance (#22),  Reporting to work on time (#37), Good personal appearance (#39)
  • Work Attitude examples: Willing to work second or third shifts (#51), Good attitude (#14),  Wanting to do a good job (#40), Willingness to be a good worker and go beyond the traditional eight-hour day (#59)
  • Only a few were actually Soft Skills examples: -  Communication skills with public, fellow employees, supervisors, and customers (#60), Interpersonal skills (#29),  Motivational skills (#30) and a few more

Given my recent article, what are soft skills,  I want to offer my own list of 28 soft skills that are essential to develop for business professionals.

Soft Skills – Self Management Skills

  1. Self awareness – knowing what drives, angers, motivates, embarrasses, frustrates, inspires you
  2. Emotion management – being able to control unexpected emotions like anger and frustration so you can think clearly and at your optimum.
  3. Self-confidence – those who believe in themselves have access to “unlimited power” (wisdom from KungFu Panda)
  4. Stress management – Being able to stay calm and balanced in stressful, overwhelming situations
  5. Resilience – Ability to bounce back from a misstep in your job or career
  6. Skills to forgive and forget - Ability to move on without baggage from a past mistake or something in your career that wronged you
  7. Persistence and Perseverance – Ability to overcome challenging situations and obstacles and maintain the same energy
  8. Patience – ability to step back in an emergency to think clearly or the ability to pause and wait when you are in a rush or want to rush others.

Soft Skills – People Skills

  1. Communication skills - skills to listen and articulate your ideas in writing and verbally to any audience in a way where you are heard and you achieve the goals you intended with that communication. This is also known as interpersonal communication skills
  2. Presentation skills – ability to maintain attention and achieve your desired outcome from presenting to an audience
  3. Facilitating skills - ability to coordinate and solicit well represented opinions and feedback from a group with diverse perspectives to reach a common, best solution.
  4. Interviewing skills – ability to sell your skills as an interviewee or accurately assess other’s ability or extract the needed information as an interviewer
  5. Selling skills – this is not just for people in sales.  This is the ability to build buy-in to an idea, a decision, an action, a product, or a service
  6. Meeting management skills – at least 50% of meetings today in corporate america are a waste of time.  This is the skill to efficiently and effectively reach productive results from leading a meeting
  7. Influence / persuasion skills - ability to influence perspective or decision making but still have the people you influence think they made up their own mind.
  8. Team work skills - ability to work effectively with anyone with different skill sets, personalities, work styles,  or motivation level
  9. Management skillsability to motivate and create a high performing team with people of varied skills, personalities, motivations, and work styles.
  10. Leadership skills – ability to create and communicate vision and ideas that inspires others to follow with commitment and dedication.
  11. Skills in dealing with difficult personalities – Ability to work well or manage someone whom you find difficult
  12. Skills in dealing with difficult situationsAbility to stay calm and still be effective when faced with an unexpected difficult situation.
  13. Ability to think / communicate on your feet (under pressure) – ability to articulate thoughts in an organized manner even when you are not prepared for the question or situation you are in
  14. Networking skills – ability to be interesting and interested in business conversations that motivates people to want to be in your network.
  15. Interpersonal relationship skillsability to build trust, find common ground, have empathy, and ultimately build good relationships with people you like or in positions of power/influence.
  16. Negotiation skillsability to understand the other side and reach a win-win resolution that you find favorably, satisfies both sides, and maintains relationships for future dealings
  17. Mentoring / coaching skills – ability to provide constructive wisdom, guidance, and/or feedback that can help others further their career development
  18. Organizing skills – ability to organize business gatherings to facilitate learning, networking, or business transactions
  19. Self-promotion skills - ability to subtly promote your skills and work results to people of power or influence in your organization.  This will build your reputation and influence.
  20. Savvy in handling office politics - office politics is a fact of life in corporate america.  This is the ability to understand and deal with office politics so you can protect yourself from unfairness as well as further your career.

This is a daunting list.  Don’t worry if you don’ t have all of them.  The important thing is to understand why they are important to your career success and then ask yourself – what soft skills do you already possess and which ones do you want to develop next?

Like this post?  Then subscribe to my newsletter - How to Succeed Like an Executive – in-depth tips (not published on the blog) on how to develop each of these soft skills.  Also please help me out and share this post on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and elsewhere.

Your Comments - Which of these soft skills do you think are the most important to your career success?  Is there a soft skill I missed in this list?  Do you think problem solving skills is a soft skill?

I look forward to your comments.  I am always in your corner.

- Lei

14 comments

Comments

14 Responses to “List of 28 Soft Skills – Business Professionals”

  1. Lyndsey
    August 9th, 2011 @ 5:27 am

    I too saw the same list you referenced at the start of this page and thought to myself that it is such an arbitrary list that can certainly give a person the wrong idea as to what a soft skill is. Thanks for posting this to clarify for people!

  2. Mohammed Ali P
    August 30th, 2011 @ 5:31 am

    i have learned a lot of soft skills from this part of view

  3. John
    November 22nd, 2011 @ 6:57 pm

    Fantastic article. Thanks a lot for your work

  4. Erica
    December 12th, 2011 @ 4:04 pm

    I am currently a student for medical assisting, and taking career development. We have to list a number of soft skills for this class. This page has absolutly made soft skills completely clear for me. Thank you!!

  5. Lei Han
    December 12th, 2011 @ 4:58 pm

    So glad to hear this article helped. Let me know if you have any questions.

  6. imtiyaz
    December 29th, 2011 @ 4:51 am

    These skills may help me to improve alot.

  7. kisan
    January 22nd, 2012 @ 8:33 am

    I learned a lot from this.

  8. Tosak
    February 23rd, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

    I doubt some of them are fully qualified as ‘skills’. Perhaps partly. I saw them both in the 60-skill list and this one e.g. Patience, Self Confidence, Resilience, etc. These are rather ‘Qualities’ we look for in a job candidate.

    Great list by the way, especially the latter 20 ppl skills.

  9. Nicole
    March 7th, 2012 @ 5:24 am

    Thank you so very much for this beautiful clarification!It makes soft skills so much easier to understand and grasp.

  10. Lei Han
    March 7th, 2012 @ 11:38 am

    Nicole, glad I can help.

  11. Ukie
    March 28th, 2012 @ 9:02 pm

    I can not get over how wonderful your website is! Everything is laid out in such a clear and concise manner. Definitely bookmarking this page…

  12. Lei Han
    March 29th, 2012 @ 11:51 pm

    Ukie, thanks for your support. Glad I can help

  13. raul ugmares
    March 30th, 2012 @ 10:28 pm

    I appreciate your teaching here abut management.

  14. 7 Tips to Reduce Stress | Career Advice - Ask a Wharton MBA
    April 23rd, 2012 @ 11:22 pm

    [...] – How to Succeed like an Executive – learn practical tips for developing your soft skills (like stress management and people skills) and apply them immediately at work Email [...]

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     Stanford engineer and  Wharton MBA |  Business / marketing  executive with 15 years of corporate experience | Mentored 100+ professionals | Screened / interviewed hundreds of candidates | Connect with me 
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