Learning about Human Skills, what drives our behaviors and social dynamics at work is at the core of my work, and it is a field where I always see room for growth. However, the purpose of learning these skills, I believe should not be just for the sake of self-development, or because it is good to have some new cool people's skills.
The reason, I find that these skills are important, is that they really help us connect with ourselves and with others, to have a better relationship with ourselves, have better personal and professional relationships, so the more we know about those skills and the more we put them in practice, the more we create a positive change in our life and hopefully for those who are part of our lives.
I have worked with teams and individuals from corporates to small businesses through a number of training, coaching and consulting projects, and what I came to realize is that no matter where we work, these human skills are helping us understand ourselves, understand interpersonal dynamics, become more resilient, become emotionally healthier and perform better, which comes as a by-product of practice.
The Most Important Human Skills
There are two skills that go hand in hand with one another, skills of emotional intelligence and resilience, because they help us address with our behavior change.
When these skills are developed, we have a better understanding of our own needs and wants, what we stand for, where our limits are, what our strengths are, what we can and we cannot tolerate. We see our behavioral patterns more clearly and how they impact the relationships we have.
Apart from it all, interpersonal dynamics at work nowadays are much more complex than they were 20 or 30 years ago and having a solid understanding and the ability to apply these skills today at our jobs is even more important, which is why it is essential to learn how we are contributing to the complexity of social dynamics through our own working styles, our own perspectives, our own behaviors and uniqueness. And it all needs to work well together with others on the team, right?
From what I have seen in my practice, it is not actually that difficult for many people to grasp these skills and to start applying them, when two conditions are met: when the approach is right and when people can clearly see what it is in it for them to learn and invest their time in it.
Learning how to be more resilient and more equipped in emotional intelligence helps with building self-confidence, grit, being better at communication, helps with how we approach change and challenging situations, that are an inevitable part of our experiences.
The common reasons when people start looking into growing these skills is when they are considering changing their careers or when they need certain skills they didn’t need to have in their previous jobs, but also when they are stepping up in their careers and suddenly they have to manage bigger projects as smoothly as possible, to cooperate professionally with a bigger team, to manage people, and not to feel too frustrated about it all.
These skills do make the difference at work and they always will: emotional intelligence is always at the top of the list of work cultures focused on people.
Why are Human Skills important in the Workplace
From the business leaders’ perspective, doing business through uncertainty, or creating a sustainable workforce is always a matter at hand. Being able to create skilled workforce and ensure retention, where people want to stay and to be motivated and engaged in their jobs, to manage many complex tasks, considering all of this, this is why these skills are highly valued in workplaces and especially for leadership - they are the ones that define a human centered work culture.
I have worked with some truly inspiring leaders who were great at demonstrating these skills where they could motivate and influence people, communicate their ideas smoothly, show resilience in turbulent times and not think it was too much to handle. That is why learning about these skills is important but putting them into action is the goal: To create a behavior change that creates a domino effect and influences creating more of such a positive change in our workplaces, more self-awareness with more emotional intelligence and resilience in practice.
Ana Toroman
People's Development Director
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