Technical skills are fundamental to a mission, but they are not enough. You must also rely on human qualities, the “soft skills communication”. What are these soft skills that are particularly appreciated by companies and how can they be developed?
At a time of massive development of Artificial Intelligence (or “AI”), human qualities are becoming more and more important when it comes to recruitment, placing the human being – long relegated to second place – at the heart of the company.
Sought after by companies, these personality traits are essential to the success of your career. To be convinced of this, just analyze a job offer… Immediately after the technical profile (the hard skills), come the personal qualities.
With equal job skills, it is often the soft skills that make the difference between 2 candidates.
Essential in business, soft skills – otherwise known as “soft skills” – are nowadays the most sought-after skills by recruiters and managers. As a guarantee of adaptability, flexibility and relational intelligence, soft skills play a decisive role in the smooth running of a team.
These skills are also essential for managing a team and communicating well with it. This is the objective of Soft Skills Communication: to rely on one’s relational skills to become a better communicator. Discover how to improve your soft skills Communication.
Practice active listening to improve your soft communication skills
Gone is the top-down communication where the manager’s voice takes precedence over that of the employees. The practice of active listening consists in listening and integrating the messages transmitted by the employees.
Active listening involves individual and group discussions. It allows us to identify tensions, discomfort, or problems within the team.
To improve your soft skills communication, encourage employees to give regular feedback in order to establish an authentic and transparent exchange with your teams.
Rely on your emotional intelligence to improve your soft skills communication
No matter how many times you repeat the same instruction to this employee, you still don’t get satisfaction.
By using your emotional intelligence, you will certainly perceive the hypersensitivity of this employee who loses his or her temper as soon as he or she is confronted with aggressive communication or authoritarian management.
Based on your emotional intelligence and to improve your soft skill communication, show empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of the shy employee who does not dare to express his fears or the frustrated employee who can no longer find the meaning of his work. You will then be able to adapt your message and the tone with which you express yourself.
Soft skills also invite you to choose the most appropriate context for communicating with an employee.
Develop your flexibility to optimize your Soft Skills Communication
You have to give bad news to an employee, but you discover that he or she is having personal difficulties? It may be better to wait a few days or to soften your speech to avoid the person feeling overwhelmed.
In short, be flexible and open-minded: incorporate the new parameters, adapt your message and choose the most appropriate time to make your announcement.
You might be interested in this:
- Management: techniques for saying the hard things
- Assertiveness and negotiation: soft skills for better communication
- Forget the posture of the little boss who imposes his point of view without leaving any room for discussion.
To inspire respect and trust in your team, rely more on your ability to negotiate and on your assertiveness. Include the opinions of your employees, discuss and argue.
Practicing Soft Skills communication will allow you to gain leadership.
Instill a team spirit in your soft skills communication
Don’t say “I” but “We”. Associate the team with successes and good results in front of management. Put yourself at the level of your collaborators to avoid the traditional split between leaders and executors.
Share your vision, communicate on the strategy, make intermediate assessments with your team so that they always feel part of a project. The sense of team spirit must be reflected in the words, communication methods and messages to instill team spirit.
Transparency, clarity and precision: these soft skills to be used in communication
Based on your soft skills, you want to establish a transparent management style.
For this to work, do the same with your communication: a well-defined direction, clear and precise messages, no withholding of information.
Cultivate your creativity to progress in soft skills communication
Creativity is one of the rare and highly sought-after soft skills. Essential for generating innovation in constantly changing environments, creativity can also be worked on in communication.
Stand-up speed-meeting for more efficient meetings, visual tools such as mind maps to brainstorm on complex projects, bullet journal to visualize all the tasks associated with the operational dimension of a project…
There are many options to communicate in an innovative and impactful way with teams and to develop your soft communication skills.
Work on non-verbal communication to improve your soft skills
The attention paid to a collaborator can be shown through a kind look, empathy can be reflected by a gesture, attentive listening can be shown by the body posture or the position of the hands.
Do not neglect all these signs of nonverbal communication which can be more significant than the words themselves.
Therefore, rely on your soft skills to adopt a non-verbal communication in phase with the messages you wish to transmit to your employees.
