Critical Skills To Develop Your Career

People skills are critical skills for career progression, especially when technical aptitude has been your career accelerator up to this point.??

If you are seeking a career move from technical competence to leadership it’s important that you recognise that the skills requirements are very different.

The difficulties of dealing with multiple layers of complexity in others, while responding to your own needs can create negative self-talk, doubt, and low confidence at a time when you need all your self-belief and drive to take on the next stage of your career.

People skills can cover anything that impacts interactions between people in the workplace. I believe these skills are so essential to success that they should be called critical skills, such as: listening, engagement, dignity, communication, motivation, coaching, rapport, care, delegation, building relationships, co-operation and leading.

Many critical skills are natural abilities, for instance listening, it is a natural skill. It is possible to listen while doing other things. Listening doesn’t take much effort.

Now consider listening when you don’t like, or don’t agree with the speaker, you are not interested in the topic, the topic has no bearing on your role, you are under pressure to deliver something else, there are distractions around you, or the sound clarity is poor. Imagine listening to a colleague who you have experienced prolonged challenges with. Assumptions influence what you expect they will say, before they even speak.

THE NATURAL SKILL OF LISTENING SHOWS UP WITH FAR GREATER COMPLEXITY WHEN ALL THE LAYERS OF EXPERIENCE AND PERCEPTION ARE APPLIED

To diminish the impact of these complex layers it’s important to create positive conditions which you can achieve with these 3 actions:

• Create space by removing distractions.
• Focus on listening and playing back what has been said to check for understanding.
• Maintain engagement through eye contact, encouragement, and positive body language.

The complexity I’ve explained for listening can be applied to every critical skill.

Combine the complex layers of experience and perception with the variety of people and styles we engage with in the work environment, and you’ll appreciate how important it is for leaders to develop an agile and adaptable mindset.

CLARITY, CONFIDENCE AND COMMITMENT ARE REQUIRED TO PROGRESS YOUR CAREER?

When career progression becomes your priority, exploring a clear plan of how to succeed is essential. Consider:

• What are you seeking?
• What attracts you to this progression?
• What critical skills do you already hold?
• Where are your development areas and what are you doing to bridge these?

The answers to these ‘what’ questions should come with ease. The challenge is translating these answers into next-step actions.

Clarity, confidence, and commitment are required to progress your career in a way that puts you in control, rather than your career developing in a haphazard or unfulfilling way.

Finding space to access clarity, confidence and commitment can be challenging with our ability to progress professionally hampered by a wide range of experiences and self-fulfilling beliefs.

Coaching is a powerful tool to explore beliefs, behaviours, and barriers in all the critical skills outlined above.

• What are the beliefs impacting your performance?
• Which behaviours are you displaying?
• How helpful are the stories you tell yourself?

Accessing an understanding of what has led to our beliefs and behaviours can be challenging to identify, explore and position positively.

Coaching slows down conversations, allows space for reflection and exploration. In this space, the opportunities of how to seek and position for the future become clear.

COACHING OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO ARTICULATE ASPIRATIONS WITH CLARITY

Coaching for your next career move is a wise investment. While attending a training course offers predefined learning outcomes, coaching is specific to you and your specific needs.

Coaching is an intelligent investment to understand deep personal beliefs, nurture more effective critical skills and create positive pathways to future success.?