Soft Skills List 2 – People Skills

by Lei Han

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.   I have split them into 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Interpersonal relationship skills – Effectively at building trust, finding common ground, having empathy, and ultimately building good relationships with people at work and in your network.  This skill is closely related to Communication Skills.  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.”
4. 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.
5. Meeting management skills – Leading a meeting to efficiently and effectively reach productive results.  At least 50% of meetings today are a waste of time.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Management skills – Creating and motivating a high performing team with people of varied skills, personalities, motivations, and work styles.
9. Leadership skills – Defining and communicating vision and ideas that inspires others to follow with commitment and dedication.
10. Mentoring / coaching skills - Providing constructive wisdom, guidance, and/or feedback that can help others further their career development

"Tribal" –  List of people skills that you will not find in any job descriptions.  They are also essential to your career success.   I call it 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.

11. 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.
12. 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.
13. Skills in dealing with difficult personalities – Being able to still achieve the work result needed while working with someone whom you find difficult.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. Negotiation skills - Being able to understand the other side’s motivations and leverage and reach a win-win resolution that you find favorably, satisfies both sides, and maintains relationships for future interactions.
18. 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…)