Leadership #PeopleSkills: 12 Essentials to Proficient People Skills
by Kate Nasser | 15 Comments »
Great leaders know that proficient people skills are critical to success. Yet in a demanding business pace, people skills are often last on the list of goals.
Luckily leaders and teams can build proficient people skills while attending to critical business. The proficiency starts with attitude and beliefs and then flows into proficient people skills behaviors.
Leaders, 12 Essentials to Proficient People Skills Image by:Sean MacEntee
12 Essentials to Proficient People Skills
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An open mind creates phenomenal results. Open minds make people feel respected, honored, and uplifted. Both in output and in morale, an open mind produces positive results. Build proficient people skills from an open mind.
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Cultural awareness strengthens people skills and results. We are global even when we feel local. Technology connects us yet we must be able to build upon that. Would you want to connect with people who showed no awareness of your world? Strengthen the proficiency of your people skills through learning about different cultures.
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Personal integrity gives you tremendous influence. When you own your mistakes, offer apologies with no excuses, and constantly improve your self-awareness, your people skills shine. Develop & exercise personal integrity and accountability.
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Teams strengthen a leader’s reality. When leaders remember that their vision gains momentum with and through employee perspective, they are more likely to respect employee input and collaboration. Build proficient people skills through engagement.
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Understanding people leads to influence. Most leadership is actually influence in action. To effectively influence others — team members, customers, and even your boss — understand what they care about. Knowledge of others builds proficient people skills.
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Know when your people skills naturally shine. Complete this sentence: I am best at people skills when ____________________________. Identify when you usually interact well with others. Is it when you are happy? Confident? Relieved? Celebrating? Respected? In need? In difficulty? When is it? Capture what you do during these times and do it all the time. Your natural pattern can build proficient people skills.
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People skills help you in tough times. Contrary to popular belief, people skills are not a sign of weakness. In tough times you can draw on the good will you have built along the way through good people skills. When people say, “because of our long standing relationship, I’ll do it for you,” that’s an homage to your proficient people skills!
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People skills are not just for extroverts. If you are more introverted than extroverted, repaint the image you have about people skills. It is not about gregarious, outspoken, high energy behavior. People skills means stepping outside of your own perspective to understand and interact effectively with others. High extroverts have just as much adaptation to make as introverts. Both succeed when they seek to understand others.
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Bonds are not bondage. Many leaders having a driver personality crave end results not relationships. In fact, many believe that bonds with others are a detour to success and a trap that stops them short of the finish line. Yet unless these leaders truly do everything themselves, relationships are the road to the finish line. Knowing the difference between bonds and bondage builds proficient people skills.
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Finding fault stops progress; finding solutions ignites success. One of the riskiest people skills moments for leaders is during a crisis or failure. That trigger voice that says: “Who’s at fault?” can bury future collaboration and success. Great people skills can guide the organization back to success and to a culture of accountability. A focus on accountability instead of blame strengthens proficient people skills and success.
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If you overlook team problems, success overlooks your teams. Morale matters. It impacts results. When leaders ignore trouble w/ statements like, they are not children — let them work it out themselves, they cost the organization money and sacrifice success. Leaders, accept the truth that you must lead morale and you build more proficient people skills.
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Get over being comfortable; get versatile. Global business success requires constant growth which means the discomfort of change. Focus on the versatility that people skills bring to your success and you will build proficient people skills!
Beliefs drive behavior. Use the 12 essential beliefs outlined in this article to build proficient people skills and valuable bonds with others.
From professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Related Posts:
Leaders, 10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars
3 Moments When Your People Skills Can Fail & How to Avoid That
©2011-2018 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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One of your best!
Kate, Excellent thoughts on people skills. The one that resonates the most with me is – Teams strengthen a leader’s reality. Strong teams make everything better: people, leaders, initiatives, etc. Great stuff, as always! Thanks! Jon
I am best at people-skills when my views are respected 🙂
Thanks Kate for yet another creative post 🙂
Regards,
Khalid
Great thoughts Kate.
I am best at people skills when I am with others doing brainstorming and team builiding activities
You might say, on No. 6, that developing people skills is also about stepping outside your comfort zone if you’re an introvert. My natural tendency is to be an introvert, but I’ve successfully learned how to step outside of my comfort zone and to pursue business opportunities. A person can either sit on the sidelines forever or he/she can take a chance and try to accomplish something.
The same might be said for No. 10. A person who settles for being comfortable is likely to be left behind in this fast-changing world.
Yes yes yes Jason. Not always easy yet stepping out to try or learn something new is the essence of long term success.
Thank you for highlighting this!
Kate
Marvelous list that’s rarely included in a world focused on systems and tactics. Thanks!
Excellent, Kate! I think that the one that speaks to me most at the moment is number 11 If You Overlook Team Problems Success Overlooks Your Team. I’ve heard too many leaders saying that they have better things to do than help their team work out their problems. Really? What could be more important? The line you used is one I’ve heard far too often. We need leaders with the People Skills to know that relationships are the catalyst for exceptional work.
Thanks, Kate!
Thank you Alli. I value your opinion on the role that leaders play in team morale. It is so critical. Thank you — truly for weighing in on this discussion!
Kate
Kate, great post, your last point resonates most clearly. The word “comfort” should not be in a leader’s vocabulary. For success, a leader needs to be uncomfortable because he/she has a variety of people on the team, uncomfortable because difficult decisions must be made, uncomfortable because direct reports grow and rise faster than she or he does.
Wonderful insight Ara. There are many privileges that seem to come with leadership AND many obligations. Being the model of growth is one of those obligations and that of course can cause discomfort.
Thank you for commenting and contributing. I hope you will share your wisdom and experience often here at the people skills blog.
Warmest regards,
Kate
kate, thanks for your positive response I will certainly be back and will comment again
These steps are wonderfully great. Building people skills remain the best way to reach the unreached. In doing this the golden rule applies-do to others what you want them to do for you.When we treat people honourably, we will get honourable results.
Dear Nnamnso,
I really like your assertion: “Building people skills remains the best way to reach the unreached.” GREAT way of saying it.
I invite you to join our online people skills community. We have presence on G+, LinkedIn, FB, and Pinterest. For more info, go to the people skills page on this site and you can connect to your preferred social stream > http://katenasser.com.customers.tigertech.net/people-skills
Also, we have a people skills Twitter chat (#peopleskills) every Sunday 10am ET.
Warmest wishes of thanks for contributing your insights to this blog post and hopefully our online community,
Kate
I found myself nodding all the way through. The one that’s sticking with me is the importance of personal integrity. This is an important list of People Skills not only for people to be aware of but to truly embrace.
Will share!
Alli