I originally published this soft skills list in June 2011. I am honored to discover that more than 500,000 of you have since read my soft skills list and found it helpful.
There are 28 soft skills essential to your career success. I wished I knew about many of these earlier in my career. I want to share them so I can empower you to work smart and achieve more. I look forward to your comments.
What are Soft Skills?
For a skill to be considered a soft skill, it needs to have three characteristics.
- Rules for mastering this skill is not black and white – Unlike hard skills, like math, where the rule for doing it perfectly is always the same, how effective you are at a soft skill changes depends on your emotional state, external circumstance, and the type of people you interact with.
- This skill is portable and valuable to any job/career – Because soft skills are about your inner strength and interpersonal effectiveness, as long as you work with people, these skills are valuable to your career.
- Mastering this skill is an ongoing journey – You can reach a level of competency in it but you can always encounter new situations or people that will test your soft skills and push you to learn more.
Other experts agree. Some define soft skills as those that are “difficult to measure” and others define soft skills as “skills which characterize relationships with other people, or which are about how you approach life and work.” There is however, one common set of skills missing in most soft skills definition. Most focus soft skills on people skills – how effective we are in working with others. This is absolutely important. However, what you must also master to accelerate success are self-management skills. These are skills that help you manage your relationship with yourself – your inner dialogue.
Based on 20 years of working experience, I define 28 soft skills that every professional should develop – 10 Self-Management skills and 18 People Skills. No matter what type of work you do, you will find value, advancement, and fulfillment in developing these 28 soft skills in your career.
Soft Skills List – Self Management Skills
Self-Management Skills address how you perceive yourself and others, manage your personal habits and emotions and react to adverse situations. Only when you build inner excellence can you have a strong mental and emotional foundation to succeed in your career.
- Growth mindset – Looking at any situation, especially difficult 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 blaming anyone.
- Self-awareness – Knowing and understanding what drives, angers, motivates, embarrasses, frustrates, and inspires you. Being able to observe yourself objectively in a difficult situation and understand how your perceptions of yourself, others, and the situation are driving your actions.
- 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.
- Self-confidence – Believing in yourself and your 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
- 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 supports your physical and emotional health, all of which you need for a fulfilling, successful career.
- Resilience – Being able to bounce back after a disappointment or set back, big or small, and continue to move onward and upward.
- Skills to forgive and forget– Being able to forgive yourself for making a mistake, forgive others that wronged you, and move on without “mental or emotional baggage.” Freeing your mind from the past so you can focus 100% of your mental energy on your near and long-term career goals.
- 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.
- Patience – Being able to step back in a seemingly rushed or crisis situation, so you can think clearly and take action that fulfills your long term goals.
- Perceptiveness – Giving attention to the unspoken cues and developing cognitive or emotional empathy of other people’s situation and perspective. 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 or don’t try to put yourself in their shoes, you can easily encounter difficulties dealing with people and not even know why.
Soft Skills List – People Skills
People Skills 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 – Conventional and Tribal
Conventional – List of people skills you can find in most job descriptions and you will be assessed on some or all of these in your performance reviews depending on your level.
- Communication skills – Being able to actively listen to others 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 also include languages skills if the spoken language at work is your second language.
- 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.
- Interpersonal relationship skills – Effective at building trust, finding common ground, having emotional empathy, and ultimately building good relationships with people at work and in your network. Also referred as you social skills, this skill is closely related to Communication Skills. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, you must have social graces in order to get far in your career. 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.”
- Presentation skills – Effectively presenting your work results and ideas formally to an audience that captivates their attention, engage their input, and motivates them to act in accordance to your desired outcome. While presentation 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 up in your career.
- Meeting management skills – Leading a meeting to efficiently and effectively reach productive results. At least 50% of meetings today are a waste of time.
- 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.
- 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.
- Management skills – Creating and motivating a high performing team with people of varied skills, personalities, motivations, and work styles.
- Leadership skills – Defining and communicating vision and ideas that inspires others to follow with commitment and dedication.
- Mentoring / coaching skills – Providing constructive wisdom, guidance, and/or feedback that can help others further their career development
“Tribal” – List of people skills that you will not find in any job descriptions. They are also essential to your 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Skills in dealing with difficult personalities – Being able to still achieve the work result needed while working with someone whom you find difficult.
- 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 think on your feet and articulate thoughts in an organized manner even when you are not prepared for the discussion or situation you are in.
- Savvy in handling office politics – Being able to understand and proactively deal with the 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 to play, it can play you.
- Influence / persuasion skills – Being able to influence perspectives or decision making but still have the people you influence think they made up their own minds.
- Negotiation skills – Being able to understand the other side’s motivations and leverage and reach a win-win resolution that you find favorably, satisfies both sides, and maintains relationships for future interactions.
- Networking skills – Being able to be interesting and interested in business conversations 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…)
I know this is a daunting list. We are here to help. This entire site and all its resources are dedicated to helping you work smart and live more through developing your soft skills. Don’t worry if you don’t have all of them today. Most of us don’t. The important thing is to understand why these soft skills are important and then ask yourself – which one do you want to develop next?
Ready to learn more about soft skills? then subscribe for our free Newsletter – How to Succeed like an Executive, exclusive articles email to you with actionable, in-depth tips on how to develop your soft skills.
I look forward to your comments. I am always in your corner.
– Lei
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I like hard skills more.
I will be working with students with special needs (ADHD, Anxiety, ASD, SLD…) transitioning from high school to college and I would love to use your list with them. Do I have your permission as long as I site your name/website? I would give you full credit!
Linda, Sorry for missing this comment. Yes, you can use the way you proposed. thanks
Lei
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Thanks for the amazing blogs ; keep sharing the posts
Thank you for this wonderful list of soft skills! This is what I needed to read for my writers block! Some of these skills are needy in the work place.
so glad to hear it. Happy Holidays Katia 🙂
Thanks for sharing this well informative blog.
I’m a student at Stevens henager college in St George Utah and my assignment is to look for soft skills and i was wondering if i could use these and permission to get citations for it
Leland, thanks for asking. You can use as long as you Site this article and my name as the source. Thanks.
With my 13 year experience in the medical field I have encountered many of these soft spoken signs. Thank you food breaking them down for us I will be using then in my everyday life.
Are you a Christian?
This is a brilliant list and thanks for creating it. To play devil’s advocate a bit, I would argue that management/executive types are often lacking in soft skills. The “winner take all” environment encourages playing politics and using favoritism to get ahead and even behaving unethically in certain ways is an accepted norm. Stated differently, I’ve worked with coworkers and managers who acted in a totally stupid way, yet they seem to experience success, at least superficially. People who truly give the effort are tough to find. Also, those who are technically good but soft skills-inept are still sought after… Read more »
Ooooh! Soft skills presented in a soft language, to which even a lay man could grasp easily. Thank you.
Wow! very Good information! This is what I am looking for ! Thank you!
I agree with you I feel like it hit home with the work place , you will have manager’s and co workers who are just unruly and I will for sure be using these skills.
I am from The Utah Parent Center, and I would like your permission to use this article to help teach transitioning students with disabilities to learn soft skills. We will not change any of the content, and of course your name will remain on the article.
thanks for asking. Pls go ahead. sorry for the late reply. If you can include a link to my site, that would be great.
I am grateful for having found your page and this list! I am a forty *ahem* something attempting to get myself back in to the work force, it has proven to be an intimidating and frustrating task. However, this list is a reminder that soft skills are an important and valuable asset for self promotion. I’ve bookmarked your page and look forward to reading more of your useful insights. Thank you for “being in my corner”.
Elle, so glad this is helpful. Glad to be in your corner 😉
Hi Lei,
I am designing a survey to study the perspectives of statistical consults who work in a private practice. In one of the questions on the survey, I am interested in asking the consultant to select, from a list of soft skills, the 5 that are most important in statistical consulting. Do I have your permission to use some of the soft skills you state on your website to form the list of soft skills for the survey questions?
Dean
Hi Dean, yes pls go ahead. I would appreciate it if you can reference my site. Best wishes
Thank you, Lei.
Hi Lei,
Time management and planning are important skills for a statistical consultant. Are these skills found in your list?
Thanks,
Dean
I categorize them as more hard skills as per my definition in this article. Being effective at Soft Skills depends on who you are dealing with and the interpersonal dynamics with yourself and others. Time management and planning are hard skills as you can learn them at any job and then directly apply them to another one. If you know how to manage your time at one job, you can do it at another one. You can adapt it for the new role, but the fundamentals are not affected by others.
Hi Lei Will self management within a framework of time not be considered a soft skill in the following instance? [Perhaps when moving from one job to another the individual may encounter more abrasive personalities or even more emotionally dependent teammates who may require or even hijack more hours in a work day. Should her self management be poor she may allow small pockets of time (minutes/hours) to be lost to these stimuli]. It’s as though time management is not possible unless the individual has a mastery of self within an 8hr workday (or workweek, etc) PS! Tx for your… Read more »
Kurt, thanks for commenting. I still consider time management more of hard skill. We all only have 24 hours a day and how we manage it can be learned. For example, coding is a hard skill, but if you work with others during coding that have abrasive behavior, it will affect your ability to code effectively. This doesn’t mean you cannot code. You just need to beef up some people skills like how to deal with difficult personalities or self management skills like how to be resilient or how to regulate your emotion so none of your work is affected… Read more »
Dear Lei,
I read the article How to turn negative feedback into your advantage. Its really nice .Hope it will work for me.Keep me updated with topic like this.
Looking forward to your next topic.
With Love
Youre so cool!
Really i appreciate the effort you made to share the knowledge. This is really a great stuff for sharing. Keep it up . Thanks for sharing.
Excellent article.!!!! Soft skill is a powerful factor for employees. Thank You for sharing this. Keep updated with new tips.
The 28 items ARE what makes or brakes a person’s career development. Thank you!
This is a wonderful resource! Thank you so much for sharing it. With your permission, I would like to use this information as key areas of discussion for a training I am putting together for individuals currently residing in a local homeless shelter/recovery facility in Wilmington, Delaware. Thank you so much!
Beth, pls feel free to use. I would appreciate a reference to my name and my site when you use it. Glad to hear it is helping your work. 🙂
Hi Ms. Lei Han!
Greetings!
I find your articles very informative and useful. I am a Guidance Counselor in Tertiary level and I would like to seek permission to use this particular article of yours in a module I am trying to design for to be used in career seminar talks. Rest assured that appropriate citations and referencing will be observed.
Thank you very much!
Glad you found it useful. Pls go ahead and reference my name and my site. Thanks
I teach graduate students and am writing about soft skills for future school leaders. I would like permission to include your list of soft skills in my work.
my soft skills are pretty good
Dear Sir Han:
We are Accounting majors from the Philippines. We are currently conducting a research regarding soft skills. We find this article of yours very informative, relevant and timely. May we ask for your permission to use your soft skills list in our survey questionnaire? Rest assured that we will give proper credits and citations! This would surely be of great help. We hope for your positive response regarding this matter. Thank you, sir! More powers!
Thanks Bethadel for reaching out. You have my permission to use this material, given you will cite this site as the source. thank you and glad this can help.
i lik dis alot beecuz it waz super mportent to me. it waz wheelie helpfull
“Week Two’s Discussion: Soft Skills”
As I read all the information on “soft skills” and finally understanding what it actually means, I begun to understand that I use just about every type of skill. The most amazing thing about “soft skills” is that they are limitless if you think about it. A “hard skill” only goes as high as the knowledge to said skill, as with a “soft skill”, you can aim as high as your imagination will let you.
Nice list of skills and useful information
I’m typically to running a blog and i actually respect your content. The article has actually peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your website and maintain checking for brand spanking new information.
This article peaked my interest as well.
My children were needing BWH HR-403 last year and learned about an excellent service that has a huge forms library . If you need to fill out BWH HR-403 too , here’s a link “http://goo.gl/kqdg0D“.
Hi to all actually I am an school going 13 year child who don’t have any proper soft skills. But after reading ur article I have implemented some of those in my daily school life. And then I got a very good result compared to previous. I have got many new friends, people started liking me and also I have got many teachers appreciations on improving my confidence, time management skills, communication skills. I would like to thank u for this article. I wish u to keep on writing such articles. ☺😊😉👍
If you are a at the moment enrolled U-M pupil, you can also make an appointment on the College Well being Service Vitamin Clinic without cost!
Hi Lei,
I am currently obtaining my Master of Science in Organizational Development. I would like your permission to use your Soft Skills List in my training manual. I am required to facilitate a workshop for my Talent & Development class. The workshop is on Improving Teamwork and your list is perfect. One of the objectives in my workshop is to build a “Soft skills toolkit”.
I hope you will allow me to incorporate your list into my training.
Thank you,
Annabelle
Sure Annabelle, please just reference my name and site when using. thanks. Best wishes. Let me know if you have questions.
Lei
It is indeed a rather daunting list! The four soft skills that I work with are generating the best ideas, maintaining healthy relationships, and finding your motivation and focus. Many of those you mentioned can follow out these four, depending on your skill level. I find these four to be directly linked to your productivity and workplace happiness. (Whereas, if you’re a great presenter, what do you have to present? You firstly need the ideas.)
Hi Lei,
Just came across this thanks to the wonders of online searches. Brings a lot of clarity! Thanks. One question though. We are looking for someone who, inter alia, loves standards, procedures, regularity, follows procedure without being outside the box, etc. I could not ding something like this – is it because it is not a soft skill but a characteristic?
Martin, these seems to characteristics, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want someone with soft skills unless that person will never work with other people. As long as this person needs to work with other people, then you also need to find out if this person have soft skills – to communicate well, deal with difficult situations or personalities, can manage their own stress, etc…
wonderful usage of terminology inside the article, it in fact did help when i was reading
I’ve just bookmarked this page, wonderful website!
Hi Lei Han,
I hope my submission finds you well. I must admit the information provided is very informative and educative.
I would love to have your permission to use your Soft Skills (while giving full acknowledgement to you) in my in-house training programs for our staff. I am into Learning & Development in the company I work in Ghana, West Africa.
I hope this humble request meets your kindest considerations.
Regards,
Joe
Joe, yes, please use it. glad to help my articles are helping your efforts to train your staff
Thanks for the above and the newsletters. They are really helpful
so glad to hear it Joy. best wishes
Lei
Hi Lei Han,
I like the way that you categorized the soft skills. I am an adult education coordinator who teaches workforce contextualized ESL and Adult Basic Education classes and workshops for a community based organization near Seattle, WA. I’d like to ask your permission to include your “28 Skills to working smart” in our “Introduction to Soft Skills” workshop. We will give you full credit and include your contact information on the handouts, please advise if we can have your permission to print and share. Thank you. David Lynch
David, of course you can use and print. I would like to help as many people as possible. Please just share my website when you print it. thanks!
This Is Great
Exceptional! Useful and in depth info!
my weakness is almost in tribal skill. how can I develop it?
The short answer is pick one of the Tribal skills, then practice, practice, practice!
You can start by
– signing up for the Soft skill Gym. https://bemycareercoach.com/softskills/gym/membership-signup so I can help you along the way
– reading all the articles under that one tribal skills.
– Each week, decide on one tip that resonated with you and practice it at work
– ask questions any time in any article comment section or via this link https://bemycareercoach.com/softskills/gym/ask-me-anything
Best wishes,
Lei
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to understand what soft skills is. I’m sooo interested in developing my soft skills, I’m sure i need to develop in all of the above skills. I really need training for soft skills, I just started in a Uk call centre for customer care, it’s only been two weeks and i would really love to master my work. Please help.
Takatso, the first step is choosing which one or two soft skills you want to develop first. You cannot develop them all at once. I think the most important soft skills to develop are interpersonal skills, and difficult personalities or situations. In the front line of a call center, it’s important to stay calm and caring even if the customer is irate and complaining. There are something you can help with and something that are outside your control. Remember, the customer is always right. That attitude plus a listening ear can go a long way with a customer that may… Read more »
Hi Lei,
A big hello to all the members who can view the comments. I am a new member to the world of Lei Han, who gave an opportunity to all of us to know the features and significance of Soft skills and got a chance to interact with different people through their post and blog. I hope it will be really helpful for me in future.
Thanks
Tanmay
Tanmay, welcome and happy new year! let me know how else I can help you. Best wishes in 2016
Lei
What is the soft skills bet one I like
Sir your team can take a lecture on soft skill in my college .
I have taught elementary school for thirteen years and often wondered why some students didn’t seem to have the skills to engage in learning. This year I moved to teaching preschool in a different state and at one training they mentioned “soft skills” and I became curious. After listening to an NPR report from economist James Heckman about these skills, I wanted to learn more so I can implement them into my preschool classroom. Many of these skills are what I now realize students were missing in my elementary class!
Kathy, glad you found the list helpful 🙂 The earlier a child can learn some of the fundamental skills like self awareness, self confidence, and interpersonal skills, the more successful she or he can be in school and in life. this is also why social and sports activities outside of the classroom is so enriching and important for kids.
Lei
Kathy, I am glad to reach more teachers with my website. I just wrote an article on Should We Teach Soft Skills to Teenagers? https://bemycareercoach.com/soft-skills/teach-soft-skills-teenagers.html. Take a look and let me know your thoughts.
Good day!
How can I contact you? Im intrested in soft skills trainigs.
Regards!
The training I provide is all on my site. You can reach me through comments on any articles. you can also get more training through signing up for the soft skills gym here. https://bemycareercoach.com/softskills/gym/membership-signup
By God, what a amazing simplified version, particularly the Convention and “Tribal” classification of soft skills.
I am in the consulting business in HR and Business Consulting Services. Had laboured while customizing TNA for clients, but this makes so easy and lucid to comprehend and that I can but say that God bless you. Great work.
Thank you Nawab. Glad to hear it. Thank you for your support.
Lei
Dear Lei Han,
I’m writing a book about the teacher’s job. I am including a section on skills. I like your definition of hard vs soft skills. Would you mind if I cite your article in my book?
Regards,
Janette
Janette, please go ahead. Glad this helps
Lei
Hi Lei, my name is Lew Bayer, I am CEO of Civility Experts Worldwide. I am writing you today to ask permission to include your piece on soft skills https://bemycareercoach.com/soft-skills/list-soft-skills.html in my upcoming book “Civility at Work” – we will of course give you full credit – and include your contact information in our sources section, please advise if I can have your permission. thank you. Lew Bayer, lew@civilityexperts.com, 204-996-4792
Lew, glad to hear you like my article. Yes, you have my permission to use as long as you provide me full credit including link to the article on my blog. thanks. Let me know when it publishes. thanks
Lei
Hi,
Got some good refreshing points after a long time. Interesting the way you divided 28 skills, Thanks.
Thank you Manish
Researchers of a new study have investigated the association of transformational leadership and spiritual intelligence. The study finds that spiritual intelligence in its dimensions has significant correlation with Transformational Leadership. You can find the complete study here http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/JSAR/2013/319474/319474.html
dear sir,
this article of yours regarding the soft skills and its importance in the organisation was so informative and everything was so precisely explained i will try my level best to induce more such skills in myself .
thanq so much for your detailed explanation.
Regards
Renoy Dharmarajan
Thank you. This is very useful.
I find that quote from Maya Angelou very inspiring. If you take it to heart and learn what you need from it then it will actually help you in developing many of these soft skills. It helps me to see things from the other persons perspective, thus helping me take responsibility for my communication and the way that it is perceived by the other person. Awareness skills, communication skills, self leadership…
Anthony, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It is very true. Being able to see the world from another person’s perspective can improve all of our soft skills
I wanted to tell you how helpful this list is. I work as an employment counselor at a human services agency and your list is wonderful. I can use it to explain to my clients why we are working on a certain skill, and I can use it to identify places where the client needs more focus. Thank you very much!
Jen, I am so glad to hear it. Thanks for sharing and using this list for your work to help others
Lei
Everyone loves what you guys tend to be up too. This sort
of clever work and reporting! Keep up the amazing works guys I’ve you guys to my own blogroll.
This site was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something that helped me.
Kudos!
Thank you. I am glad you found it useful. Best wishes
It is definitely a well researched detailed article on soft skills. It has helped comprehend what these skills really are.
I will be thankful if you may take a minute or two to write back to me and guide me as to where can I professionally get trained from on Soft skills and Voice & Accent.
Hmm it appears like your blog ate my first comment (it was super long) so I
guess I’ll just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog.
I as well am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still
new to the whole thing. Do you have any tips for inexperienced blog writers?
I’d really appreciate it.
Stellar article!
Thank you for this. Definitely helped me about understanding soft skills in-depth. Will forever bookmark this article and this site. 🙂
This website certainly has all of the information I wanted concerning this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
Dear Sir,
As a Communication expert for public affairs/ out reach what Soft skills any employer look for? Will you please List at least 4 soft skills.
A MNC, consulting company asked me for CV, where a column of Soft Skills is to be fulfilled . will you please give your valuable suggestion on soft skills for effective communication expert.
thanks,
AMIN KHAN
aminkhansakalgroup@gmail.com
Amin, thanks for your question. Here is the top 4 soft skill I think employers will look for in a communication expert
– Written and verbal communication skills
– presentation skills
– interpersonal relationship skills
– skills of being diplomatic
Best wishes
I am part of a team that is developing a seminar where business people meet our high school staff to identify and emphasize the importance of soft skills to the employer. The plan is to motivate teachers to find ways to incorporate the teaching of soft skills as they teach the hard skills of their respective disciplines. This site is very helpful in developing that plan,
Would you like to come to Portland Maine to speak to our staff….Portland is nice in the spring…….Lobster….just sayin!
Eric, thank you for your comment. I am glad to hear my site is helpful to your efforts. I do think the earlier we can teach our kids soft skills, the more prepared they would be for college and the working world. Thank you also for your invitation to fly out to Maine to talk to your staff. I love Lobster! Unfortunately visiting in the spring may be difficult =given my current schedule. However I would be happy to speak to you or some staff over a video or tele-conference call if it makes sense. Email me and we can… Read more »
this is the best website ever. i love reading the comments. it was nice seeing you all. well BYE!!!
I keep this list on my desk. It’s between some different work folders and every time I come across it I remind myself of the soft skills that are foundational to personal and professional success. Some skills may be innate but many others take conscious acknowledgement and practice. This is the one list that I refer to and always find a new interpretation.
Fascinated by your 28 skills and wondering if you conducted any research to distill those skills into those 28?
Harish, Thanks for your comment. Here is the research I did to come up with the 28 soft skills. Let me know if you have any questions or additional suggestions for research. 1. Based on searching for Soft Skills on Google – there are a lot of perspective but no real consensus. 2. Based on my 15+ years of work experience as a consulting – soft skills are critical to a consultant’s success. Also one of my key skills as a consultant is to be able to provide a definition and structure to something ambiguous. Soft skills fit in that… Read more »
this is really very worth imp info that you have provided here ,thanks for the same.
my request to you that im decided to research in Soft Skills for undergraduate students so what skills are better to choose? would u plz guide me? send the details on provided email id
Kishor, thanks for your comments and your question. Here are my thoughts on the key soft skills for undergraduates. Both self-management skills and people skills still apply but the following skills are the most important for a college student – Self management skills – empowered mindset, self-awareness, self confidence, emotion regulation, persistent, and perceptiveness – People skills – communication skills, interpersonal skills, teamwork skills, managing upwards, self promotion, dealing with difficult situations, and networking skills Your comments prompted me to think I should write a post of Top 10 soft skills for undergraduates. I will put it on my list… Read more »
Lei, this article is so clever and clear. It gives hope to generic positions seekers. Makes you realize you can shine, where the competition is very high.
Wow, what a great list! this made it so much clearer. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I am printing this out so I can refer to it often and remind myself of especially the Tribal soft skills
I love this model. It really helps me focus on the boxes where I need the most development. I didn’t realize until I read through this article how much opportunity I had to work on my self-management skills. Thanks for reporting this great article!!!
This is a great list of soft skills. I agree with all of them and can’t (at the moment) think of any you missed. I was an engineering manager of a small group of about 12 engineers and technicians. While technical skills were important and required they were not enough to be successful in their jobs. We had to use customer service skills when supporting the technicians and managers of our production line.
Many tips you include this article thanks.
Very helpful! I will be referring to your article on an ongoing basis to evaluate my progress in developing soft skills. Thanks a bunch!
Thank you Tom for the comment and support. I love reading all the comments even ones that disagree with me. Only through discussion can we all improve. 🙂 I am working on a revision of this article and will publish it soon. Stay tuned.
Lei
In a way, most of the soft skills that you’ve listed, to me, imply the ability to appreciate and recognize one’s soul and the ability to empathize with others, amongst other things. For altruistic reasons, I really do like this quote that I’ve heard (from an anime, no less) that goes something like this, “It’s not the smart or the strong that survive, but those who have the ability to adapt.” I really liked your post but especially the fact that you shed light on soft skills and in a sense synergy, and the fact that you took the time… Read more »
I might have missed this or off track but … would “time management” be a soft skill, if so would it come under something else – if not, please expound if possible. Thanks! Excellent post.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that time management is important. I thought about including time management initially however to me, it’s still more of a hard skill like analytical skills. I define hard skills as those that have a set rules that everyone can follow (e.g., prioritize your work will help with time management). If you apply those rules in any situation you will improve. Soft skills however depends on human emotion or human interaction. While there are tips for how to improve soft skills (e.g., put yourself in the other person’s shoes), a person needs to figure out… Read more »
I think Soft skill is very important for successful manager. But I think this kind of skill is can not be study, only be or not to be… It only character and charismatic.
Very useful! Keeping it as an improvement list.
great list!! im gunna use some of this in my future days..
This is a good list.
this is a good resource
Thank you for this list, it’s very useful. I’m going to borrow some skills for my resume ))
I hope I’m not spamming comments here but I just realised my example of De Bono Six Hat vs Governmental Debate would be classed as a hard skill. Something you can learn at school or in a book.
But still, I think problem solving is a soft skill because how you approach a problem changes depending on a situation.
Are the type of person to clear the paper jam from the photocopier, get an intern to do clear it or just kick it until it works for your one copy? =)
Alex, I apologize for my very late reply. Thanks for taking the time to comment. These are great food for thoughts. Personally, I think what is considered a soft skill is an artificial line I drew in the sand. You can very well disagree and we can both be right. With that said, here are my two cents on your comments 1. Problem solving – I consider this a hard skill especially when the problem is pertaining to a business issue or a work issues. What you described as problem solving above, I classify more as a management skills –… Read more »
Hi, This was a great list. I just spent 3 hours going through and writing down my competencies for each one. (don’t worry they’re not listed here) To comment on your idea of problem solving as a skill, the engineer in me says that problem solving is a skill in itself. There are particular steps to being efficient in solving problems (being logical and rational helps) and not everyone is good at it. Think De Bono Six Hat vs Governmental Debate. How this fits into your two categories is not so clear because it’s broader than both. But I’ll try… Read more »
Thanks for your effort in making it more informative and useful.
Some of what you list are indeed “soft-skills”: but soft-skills by definition should also refer to the rudimentary skills, such as; abilty to communicate by speaking and writing coherently / telephone etiquette / commom sense. Emotional Intelligence is arguably NOT a soft skill-it is not learnt or aquired easily and not all young workers would be expected to demonstrate this trait, which is usually aquired over time with the benefit of experience.
Reliance Traditional, life long, professional, and natural Son of Zeno of Citium Who loves family, being part of a team, and learning Who submissive to natural law, unmoved, and indifferent Who needs a song, youthfulness to be wise, and dance Who gives dreams, friendship, and innocence Who fears old age, the worst, and the lack of Who would like to see upheaval, every purpose, and another world Resident of Liberty Island Clemons After completing your bio-poem, read it over. Then reflect on how this soft skill will help you in your new career after graduation. 100 word minimum Reliance is… Read more »
Very good and useful list to keep in mind and refer back to. Thank you for putting together.
thank to help me,you have done a great job in developing this list,i like this site
it is a good lisrt of thing 🙂 keep it comeing
good list of soft skills.We can go on adding to the list depending on our experiences
I was kept oblivious to the fact that skills could actually be categorised in this manner but i am grateful i came into contact with this site that has enlightened me. Thanks a million.