Myself and my colleague had just attended a two day program conducted by a very reputed Management Guru on “Striving Towards Continuous Development”. We were discussing this very aspect with my core team that how all of us should focus on self-development be it in professional career or in personal life. Though each one i.e. professional & personal may call for completely different actions by us. That brings to the point that all of us want to excel in every activity we are doing, by default no one comes to work place with a mindset of failing. Having said that why some individuals succeed? What is the formula for success? Let us dive deeper into the subject.
Firstly, personal development is an ongoing process, which starts right from childhood. This development includes activities that help develop your capabilities be it technical knowledge and also the potential. This would facilitate your market value and employability. In turn it leads to better quality of life and realisation of your goals and dreams. The Personal Development Skills are important, as can be seen from above, that it creates a strategic and tactical plan for personal and professional growth.
Skill Development
With the constantly changing environment you need to upgrade yourself with the latest technology, learn new things techniques. This will vary for concerned as it depends on the field in which you are working. These are called hard skills. The second set of skills is soft skills like communication, leadership, conflict resolution, public speaking etc. We will mainly focus on soft skills and their impact. Some of the important areas of development in soft skills that successful people like to work on include
- Communication
- Integrity
- Conflict Resolution
- Leadership
- Work Ethic
- Problem Solving
- Flexibility
This list can go on but for this blog let us stay focused on the above and have a brief overview of each one.
Communication
Communication is the most important aspect. Once you are able to communicate effectively you are setting up your expectations clearly. It includes your ability to speak, listen and write. Good communication skills means active listening, showing empathy and friendliness, also speak confidently with managing tone of your voice.
Integrity
People tend to trust those who are honest and standby their values. Integrity means doing what is right and telling the truth in every situation. It is behaving honourably even if no one is watching you. This forms the fundamental block of employer-employee relationship and is developed over a period of time. Some of the traits are respectful, trustworthy, gracious, honest & hardworking.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict is part and parcel of life. No two individuals are same so there is bound to be a difference of opinion. In a successful team one always take members with different mindset/opinions to get all round perspective of the situation. A good leader possesses the skill to resolve the conflicts amicably and make everyone satisfied so that you can achieve the common goal.
Leadership
This is the ability to guide people. Great leaders share a common vision and drive the people to the attainment of the goal. There are several leadership styles and one can be successful with any of the style. The leadership style also depends on the environment you are in. At times you quickly need to adapt to the situation without compromising your values to drive towards a common goal.
Work Ethic
It encompasses not just hard work but also reliability, responsibility, quality and discipline. With good work ethic people tend to always in a positive frame of mind and thus are able to deliver consistently.
You can develop this over a period of time by being consistent in completing tasks on scheduled time frames, in efficient manner, being punctual and professional. Most importantly it leads to a good work life balance.
Problem Solving
Problem Solving is your ability to handle any challenging situation. Good problem solvers can remain calm when faced with really tough situation. It is this aspect that helps them to focus on current issue and what needs to be done to correct the situation. In order to be good at this you should posses some of skills like good listening, analysing, doing necessary research, out of box thinking, decision making and also visualise the impact of the potential solution.
Flexibility
Flexibility is your ability to quickly adapt to a new situation understands the nuances and mitigate through. The business environment is constantly changing and you should be able to assess the situation quickly, understand the new challenges/obstacles on the way, and make necessary amends in your approach to achieve the common goal.
Now let us look at how we can improve on the skills mentioned above. The first step towards improvement is to assess where you are currently. Ask your fellow team members or your supervisor for a candid feedback. Having realised your areas of improvement next step will be to define your personal development goals. Once you have an end point in mind then you need to decide how to reach there. For that you have various options like joining a course, learning from the superiors around you, acquiring new skill sets etc. to take the journey of improvement. Some important points you should remember while taking this journey
- Overcome your fears. The biggest impediment in this journey of yours is only you. Come over your lizard brain and shed all the negativity
- There is no shortcut to success so you must strive hard to learn something new, keep reading a lot, and have a large appetite for reading.
- Get periodic feedback from your colleagues, friends and supervisors. This will help you do course correction.
- Be open to new ideas, observe intently activities around you.
- Networking always helps you to understand different individuals how they think. You will get new ideas and you also can bounce ideas with them to understand their perspective.
- Lastly if you can have a mentor in this journey he/she can guide you in this journey.
These are some of the personal development skills, I will be covering each skill set in detail in the upcoming blogs, hope this helps you. For more tips on personal growth check this.
