How strong are your soft skills?

Fundamental Competencies
Written By Stacia Aylward

The Challenge

Soft skills are personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Communication skills, teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability are just some of the soft skills employers value. Create a list of your five strongest soft skills. Then identify three additional soft skills you could work on improving.

Why do this?

Strong soft skills create an excellent foundation for success--they are the perfect complement for the more technical skills you bring to your work.

LinkedIn's 2019 Global Talent Trends Report indicates that 92% of employers believe soft skills are at least as important as hard skills in successful job performance. Skills such as creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and time management--in combination with the hard skills needed to do your job--create synergy that will add value for you and your employer.

What’s next?

Take a deeper dive into identifying and enhancing your soft skills by tackling the challenges in our "developing soft skills" series. These challenges cover integrity, creativity, flexibility, interpersonal skills, and political savvy.

Stacia Aylward

Zelos CEO Stacia C. Aylward is an executive leader and lifelong learner with broad professional experience in envisioning and leading programs, projects and teams; facilitating and teaching adults; conducting research; and developing client relationships using proven methodologies in many government and technical fields, including economics, education, healthcare, housing, non-profit governance, IT and law. Stacia holds a master’s degree in Communication and Information, a bachelor’s degree in English, a Six Sigma black belt certification, and a Coach Approach to Leadership credential.

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