skills inventory for leaders
TRANSCRIPT
SKILLS INVENTORY FOR LEADERS
Oyewole O. Sarumi |PhD|
INTRODUCTION
• Skill generally is an ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and
sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job
functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people
(interpersonal skills).
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/skill.html
• A skill is the ability to carry out a task with pre-determined results often within a
given amount of time, energy, or both.
• Skills can often be divided into domain general and domain-specific skills. For
example, in the domain of work, some general skills would include time
management, teamwork and leadership, self-motivation and others, whereas domain-
specific skills would be useful only for a certain job.
• Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level
of skill being shown and used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill
HIERARCHY OF SKILLS
• People need a broad range of skills in order to contribute to a modern economy.
• A joint ASTD and U.S. Department of Labor study showed that through technology, the
workplace is changing, and identified 16 basic skills that employees must have to be
able to change with it.
DEFINITION – HARD SKILLS
• Understanding Hard Skills - Hard skills are the essential, required skills needed to
perform a job. They include learned skills and training related to your career or
profession.
• Hard skills are considered tangible skills because they're easily identified and
measured with things like tests and exams.
• When writing a resume or applying for a job, it's essential that you convey hard skills
to your prospective employer, such as schooling, degrees, training and certificates.
HARD SKILLS
• Hard skills – These are trade skills and subject matter expertise, like programming,
accounting, financial analysis, or chemical engineering that we need to perform our
job.
• Hard skills are skills where the rules stay the same regardless of which company,
circumstance or people you work with.
• For example, programming is a hard skill. The rules for how you can be good at
creating the best code to do a function is the same regardless of where you work.
DEFINITIONS – SOFT SKILLS
• Wikipedia defines soft skills as “associated with a person’s ‘EQ’ (Emotional
Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces,
communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that
characterize relationships with other people.”
• MindTools defines soft skills as “your work ethic, your attitude, your communication
skills, your emotional intelligence and a whole host of other personal attributes”
• Soft skills are skills where the rules changes depending on the company culture
and people you work with.
• “Soft Skills” have become one of most used buzz words of the 21st century.
• Soft skills" are the most important skills for your career. They are the skills that are difficult
to systemize and automate. They are the skills that define leadership and creativity.
• Soft skills are those skills that are difficult to measure. In other words, hard skills can easily
be measured by a test but soft skills can't.
• It's easy to determine who has the best mathematics skills. It's difficult to determine who's
best at innovation or diplomacy.
•
CAREER SUCCESS FRAMEWORK.
• A clear framework to help us
define and distinguish what are
soft skills was designed by Lei Han
and called “Career Success”
Framework.
• There are five categories of job
skills essential to our career
success, two of which are soft skills
categories.
SOFT SKILLS – PEOPLE SKILLS
• Soft Skills – People skills – These are the skills we use to interact with others at
work. Examples of people skills include communications and interpersonal skills as
well as skills to manage upwards and deal with office politics. For example,
• It’s not enough to have a brilliant idea, it is only when we communicate it effectively and to
the right people, can we garner the support needed to implement it.
• It is not enough to work hard. If no one knows about it, it unfortunately doesn’t count. We
have to subtly self-promote, so that the right people can appreciate all of our hard skills
and soft skills.
• There are 18 people skills that we should hone and develop over the course of our
career.
SOFT SKILLS – SELF MANAGEMENT SKILLS
• Soft Skills – Self management skills – These are the skills to help us manage self
perception and our reactions to adverse situations. For examples, How can we
succeed if we don’t feel confident to take certain actions?
• How can we succeed if we cannot control our angry response to unexpected
situations?
• There are 10 self management soft skills including confidence, patience and stress
management, which are fundamental to our career success.
WORK ATTITUDE
• Work Attitude – This category refer to our
temperament and outlook. For example, work
ethic, positivity, and willingness to learn are
attributes typically valued by companies.
PROFESSIONALISM
• Professionalism – This category includes
basic business etiquette – the way we
dress, speak, and behave in a work setting.
THREE KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HARD SKILLS VS. SOFT SKILLS
• To be good at hard skills usually takes smarts or IQ (also known as your left brain-
the logical center). To be good at soft skills usually takes Emotional Intelligence
or EQ (also known as your right brain- the emotional center).
• Examples of hard skills include math, physics, accounting, programming, finance,
biology, chemistry, statistics, etc…
• Examples of soft skills include self management skills like self confidence, stress
management and people skills like communication or networking skills.
• Communication skills are a set of soft skills. The rules for how to be effective at
communications change and depend on your audience or the content you are
communicating.
• You may communicate well to fellow programmers about technical details while
struggle significantly to communicate clearly to senior managers about your project
progress and the support needed.
• Hard skills can be learned in school and from books. There are usually designated
level of competency and a direct path as to how to excel with each hard skill. For
example, accounting is a hard skill. You can take basic accounting and then
advanced accounting courses. You can then work to get experience and take an
exam and be certified as a CPA, etc..
• In contrast, there is no simple path to learn soft skills. Most soft skills are not
taught well in school and have to be learned on the job by trial and error. There
are many books and guides on soft skills.
HARD SKILLS VS. SOFT SKILLS – WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?
• It depends highly on the career you choose. Here is why.
• Careers can be put into 3 kind of categories. It is up to you to figure out which category
your career is in.
1) Careers that need hard skills and little soft skills (example: Physicists); This is where
you see brilliant people who may not easily work well with others. They can still be very
successful in their career – look at Albert Einstein
• 2) Careers that need both hard and soft skills – many careers are in this category
(example: Accountants, Lawyers – they need to know the rules of accounting or law well
but they also depend on selling to clients to build a successful career. Dealing well with
clients require excellent soft skills like communication skills, relationship skills etc…)
•
3) Careers that need mostly soft skills and little hard skills (example: sales. A car salesman
don’t really need to know that much about cars, just a little more than the consumer. His
job is more dependent on his ability to read his customers, communicate his sales pitch,
persuasion skills, and skills to close to deal. These are all soft skills.)
• Another way to assess how important are soft skills in your career is to ask
yourself three questions
• 1) Is how well I work and communicate with others critical to my performance review and
the decision for my promotion?
• 2) Are people in the same position as me well liked in the company and promoted faster?
• 3) Does my ability to control my temperament at work affect my performance review?
If all three is yes, soft skills are very important to develop if you want to advance in your
career.
• Soft skills are more important in most business careers than hard skills. We all
know or have worked for senior people that doesn’t seem that smart (limited hard
skills).
• The fact remains that they are in senior positions because they have exceptional soft
skills (e.g., know how to leverage politics to further their careers, leadership skills,
management skills, self promotion skills etc…).
THE IMPORTANCE
• Hard and soft skills both play different and important roles within your career.
• Hard skills are what will spark an employer's attention and get you an interview, while
soft skills will help you advance once you're part of the company.
• One of the bigger mistakes an employee can make is neglecting his soft skills. Soft
skills also help management separate potential leaders from other contributors in the
company.
SOFT SKILLS LIST –SELF MANAGEMENT
SKILLS
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.
• They are briefly discussed:
1. GROWTH MINDSET
• 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.
2. SELF-AWARENESS
• 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.
3. EMOTION REGULATION
• 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.
4. SELF-CONFIDENCE
• 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
5. STRESS MANAGEMENT–
• 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.
6. RESILIENCE
• Resilience – Being able to
bounce back after a
disappointment or set back, big
or small, and continue to move
onward and upward.
7. SKILLS TO FORGIVE AND FORGET
• 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.
8. PERSISTENCE AND PERSEVERANCE
• 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.
9. PATIENCE
• 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.
10. PERCEPTIVENESS
• 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. They are in 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.
11. COMMUNICATION SKILLS
• 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.
13. TEAMWORK SKILLS
• 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
• 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.”
14. PRESENTATION SKILLS
• 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.
15. MEETING MANAGEMENT SKILLS
• Meeting management skills –
Leading a meeting to efficiently and
effectively reach productive results.
• At least 50% of meetings today are a
waste of time.
16. FACILITATING SKILLS
• 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.
17. SELLING SKILLS
• 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.
18. MANAGEMENT SKILLS
• Management skills –
Creating and motivating a
high performing team with
people of varied skills,
personalities, motivations, and
work styles.
19. LEADERSHIP SKILLS
• Leadership skills – Defining and
communicating vision and ideas
that inspires others to follow with
commitment and dedication.
20. MENTORING / COACHING SKILLS
• Mentoring / coaching skills –
Providing constructive wisdom,
guidance, and/or feedback that can
help others further their career
development
“TRIBAL” SOFT SKILLS
• “Tribal” – List of people skills that you will not find in any job descriptions. They
are also essential to your career success.
• It’s called 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.
21. MANAGING UPWARDS
• 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.
22. SELF-PROMOTION SKILLS
• 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.
23. SKILLS IN DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PERSONALITIES
• Skills in dealing with difficult
personalities – Being able to still
achieve the work result needed while
working with someone whom you find
difficult.
24. SKILLS IN DEALING WITH DIFFICULT/UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS
• 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.
25. SAVVY IN HANDLING OFFICE POLITICS
• 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.
26. INFLUENCE / PERSUASION SKILLS
• 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.
27. NEGOTIATION SKILLS
• Negotiation skills – Being
able to understand the other
side’s motivations and leverage
and reach a win-win resolution
that you find favourably, satisfies
both sides, and maintains
relationships for future
interactions.
28. NETWORKING SKILLS
• 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…
87 SOFT SKILLS LIST
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
• 1. Verbal Communication
2. Body Language
3. Physical Communication
4. Writing
5. Storytelling
6.Visual Communication
• 7. Humour
8. Quick-wittedness
9. Listening
10. Presentation Skills
11. Public Speaking
12. Interviewing
LEADERSHIP
• 13. Team Building
14. Strategic Planning
15. Coaching
16. Mentoring
17. Delegation
18. Dispute Resolution
19. Diplomacy
20. Giving Feedback
21. Managing Difficult Conversations
• 22. Decision Making
23. Performance Management
24. Supervising
25. Managing
26. Manager Management
27. Talent Management
28. Managing Remote Teams
29. Managing Virtual Teams
30. Crisis Management
Influencing
• 31. Facilitation
32. Selling
33. Inspiring
34. Persuasion
35. Negotiation
36. Motivating
37. Collaborating
Interpersonal Skills
• 38. Networking
39. Interpersonal Relationships
40. Dealing with Difficult People
41. Conflict Resolution
42. Personal Branding
43. Office Politics
PERSONAL SKILLS
• 44. Emotional Intelligence
45. Self Awareness
46. Emotion Management
47. Stress Management
48. Tolerance of Change and Uncertainty
49. Taking Criticism
50. Self Confidence
51. Adaptability
52. Resilience
• 53. Assertiveness
54. Competitiveness
55. Self Leadership
56. Self Assessment
57. Work-Life Balance
58. Friendliness
59. Enthusiasm
60. Empathy
CREATIVITY
• 61. Problem Solving
62. Critical Thinking
63. Innovation
64. Troubleshooting
65. Design Sense
66. Artistic Sense
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
•
67. Organization
68. Planning
69. Scheduling
70.Time Management
71. Meeting Management
72. Technology Savvy
73. Technology Trend Awareness
74. Business Trend Awareness
75. Research
76. Business Etiquette
• 77. Business Ethics
78. Diversity Awareness
79. Disability Awareness
80. Intercultural Competence
81. Training
82.Train the Trainer
83. Process Improvement
84. Knowledge Management
85. Writing Reports and Proposals
86. Customer Service
87. Entrepreneurial Thinking
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
• Most of us have spent at least 16 years in school focused mainly on building our hard
skills full time and a little on our soft skills through team projects, sports, and social
activities.
• To succeed in our career, shouldn’t we spend at least another 16 years or more to
proactively master the soft skills necessary to advance our careers?
• The important thing is to understand why these soft skills are important and then ask
yourself – which one do you want to develop next?
MATERIALS USED/CONSULTED
• From Anna Mar’s: http://training.simplicable.com/training/new/87-soft-skills
• https://bemycareercoach.com/soft-skills/hard-skills-soft-skills.html
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hard-skills-vs-soft-difference-importance-hajar-
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