How can you develop your soft skills more effectively?

In my experience, I’ve found personality assessment tools to be very helpful. Being more of an analytical person, I find these assessment results provide a more objective measure of strengths and weakness than getting feedback from others. The objective results provide you with a jumping off point to start re-evaluating what you need to learn or focus on to improve.

This works always. Find people who are better than you at something that you wish to develop. They could be your friends, colleagues, juniors/ team members, leaders or your boss. Ask them questions. Observe them. Take their advice. Give them a compliment (a genuine compliment). :) Offer them your help and get in the trenches with them. I have learnt many things from my peers over the last 10-12 years such as how to stay assertive, how to stand your ground, how to address conflict and how to negotiate with business stakeholders. This one works like a charm only if you are willing to learn.

This is so right, Life itself is a continuous learning journey, An open mind with the ability to seek knowledge knows the importance of learning, This reminds me of one of the sayings of Hazrat Ali (R.A) : "I am a slave to anyone who ever taught me even a single word". For e.g: Looking at the Ants shows us Teamwork, Commitment and how to be organized. learning never stops one should be open to learn and adaptable to change positively.

Once I was reading a book on 'how to lose weight'. My colleague commented, "You won't lose by reading a book.". That hit me hard. :D. I knew I won't lose weight by reading, but the book sure would give me insights into what can I start doing. However, what she said had a lot of practical value. Often we get stuck in acquiring knowledge (as much as we can) and undervalue the role of actually doing something/ or putting something in practice. Practice as much as you can, wherever you can - when you start to develop a soft skill.

A feedback is considered to be a nourishing ingredient in building a balanced personality, this tends to helps in thinking and looking at the different aspects of our behaviors. One of my colleague once said to me you are too fast to respond to a particular situation, you should take time before reacting and i thought yes thats right. For e.g. if your Manager asks you about the status of a particular task and you know that there are some dependencies involved. take time to know the dependencies in detail, the possible turn around time and than let know the Manager about the status instead of giving information which you are not sure.

Soft Skills or Behavioural Skills take a long time to develop unlike functional/ technical skills. There's a lot of subjectivity involved in behavioural skills demonstration too. This is why learners need to be patient with themselves and allow them time to develop a new skill. If you wish to strengthen your communication skills, it won't happen overnight. It would take time, patience, iterations, strong will to experiment and practice no matter what.