What are the Most Important Soft Skills our Next Generation of Leaders Need?

As each group of leaders take over from the previous generation, their skillset would need to change because the world of business evolves. Even more so in the last two years. We went from office jobs to remote workplaces overnight and from face-to-face to online interaction. Technology plays a huge role in making our lives easier, because we as consumers want instant gratification. But we also want to experience a pleasant journey with the companies we buy our products or services from. It has become an integrated world of work, experiences, knowledge, and soft skills.

“Legacy is not what I did for myself. It’s what I’m doing for the next generation,” said Vitor Belfort. It’s up to this generation to educate the next.?

3 Important Soft Skills our Next Generation of Leaders need:

Peggy Klaus said, “Soft skills get little respect, but will make or break your career.” It’s time to take the next generation under our wing and guide them into the next era. ?Our next generation of leaders will need much more than just a tertiary education to flourish in the working world. They will need strong role models and eager mentors to show them the ropes and teach them these 3 important soft skills:

1.????Adaptability and Flexibility

“All failure is the failure to adapt; all success is successful adaptation.” ―Max McKeown

Rapid change is inevitable in this fast-paced era we are living in. We need a future generation of leaders who can roll with the punches and adapt quickly to various situations, technology, and innovations. Those leaders are the ones who will be sought after in business and will grow in future.

“The need for adaptability has never been greater than it is now. The ability for people, teams, and organizations to adapt to changes in their environments, stay relevant and avoid obsolescence is the defining characteristics between success and failure, growth and stagnation, business and bankruptcy.” (Jeff Boss – Forbes)

Being adaptable at work can mean people can respond quickly to changing ideas, responsibilities, expectations, trends, strategies, and other processes. Being adaptable also means possessing soft skills like interpersonal, communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills.

The Mindspa Institute has an insightful and focussed course that will unpack the building blocks required to strengthen your future generation team’s adaptability and provide everyone with practical tips and tools.???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

2.????Critical, Analytical and Agile Thinking

There is a real shortage of young leaders who can do proper and effective problem solving other than playing the blame game or sticking their heads in the sand. We don’t teach critical and agile thinking to our kids because we are spoon-feeding and solving their problems for them.

Critical and Analytical thinking is the process of breaking down complex information into components to analyse, interpret, evaluate, and construct reasoned arguments in order to solve a problem or reach a conclusion. Fostering an agile thinking mindset in our youth is a future business imperative in the upcoming fast-changing and challenging business landscape.

A team and future leaders with an “agile mindset” can respond to change when the need arises rather than following a, “we’ve always done it this way,” fixed thinking approach.?A team with agile thinking believes in adapting to change, learning through failures and is open to feedback and continuous improvement.

“Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change along with it.” — Steve Maraboli

There is a very practical workshop, presented by The Mindspa Institute, that will enable teams and future leaders to become fully acquainted with all the information and steps to create an agile thinking mindset in your business.?It will also give the organisation’s future team an opportunity to create an agile thinking Game Plan in the Brainstorming Session with practical, implementable steps and goals.

Then there is also The Mindspa Institute’s one-day workshop called Critical and Analytical Thinking which will enable the future generation of leaders to distinguish between the two and equip them with tools to analyse information and effectively solve problems.

3.????Communication across Cultures

As the forthcoming generation of leaders, it is vitally important to be able to communicate innovative thoughts and ideas effectively, using a variety of tools and mediums. This is a skill that everyone needs to develop and which they will use throughout their years of employment. But communicating properly has become challenging. It is often said that most people do not possess the ability to present themselves or their ideas well, or that there is a real cultural communication barrier. When there is a deeper cultural understanding through effectively communicating with one another, it leads to positive interaction, utilising diversity and using it to the company’s advantage. It also develops better collaboration between teams.

Because the future of business is already a Global Economic sphere, understanding and communicating across cultures will not only embrace change and lead to a better competitive advantage, but will also teach employees and broaden their knowledge about people. All that is needed is skills training, coaching and practice. Communicating effectively is an essential skill demanded in the next generation of leaders to adapt to a fast-changing business environment.

The Mindspa Institute presents an interactive training course designed to provide the young generation with the skills, knowledge, techniques, and strategies to communicate effectively so that they can get their point across in a more confident and clear manner, while improving efficiency and productivity.

We’ve all experienced uncertainty, fear, and a sense of loss during these turbulent past few years, and this has severely impacted our businesses and our teams. We need to prepare our young employees properly. We, as role models, mentors, and businesses of the future generation of leaders need to understand what makes the next generation tick, because how we employ them, how we motivate them and how we develop them into the future leaders of our businesses and teams, matters.?