Soft Skill/Competency: Conviction

For Building Leadership and Management, read: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Also read “Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Musings” at http://shyam-bhatawdekar-musings.blogspot.com/)

Refer previous seventeen posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills", "Composure or Coolness", "Decision Making", "Integrity", "Team Work and Team Building", "Developing People", "Conflict Management", "Leadership" and "Motivation" and "Listening".

Conviction

Explanation of the Competency "Conviction"

• Keeps improving his knowledge and understanding from various sources in order to decide upon his own beliefs and convictions in the important aspects of personal, professional, family and social life. 
• Based on such in-depth and ongoing studies and observations he creates a structure of values, beliefs, paradigms and view points that should guide him presently and in future. 
• Sticks to those values and beliefs unless in exceptional situation he finds that he was wrong and corrects himself in those few areas where he was wrong. 
• Reviews his day-to-day paradigms and points of views quite regularly and is willing to embrace a new paradigm with a new conviction when the paradigm shift takes place.
• Makes his convictions known to the concerned people with reasoning and without any hesitation.
• Based on his convictions, he is courageous to take stand on important issues fearlessly even at the cost of becoming unpopular occasionally.
• Does not take stand on trivia.
• Defends and supports the convictions of other people if he finds them convincing.
• Does not waver or crumble under any internal or external pressures.
• His actions are always in congruence with his principles and paradigms. He is interested in doing what is right.
• Thus he is capable of providing the requisite initiative and leadership in tough times on a rainy day.
• Is willing to take blame and responsibility in case the decisions and actions taken by him based on his convictions misfire in certain cases. He introspects such situations deeply and applies corrections if necessary.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May become too rigid and not willing to change even when it is really appropriate to change.
• May become unwilling to put forth his rationale for his principles and thus he may exude fear and animosity towards others who do not carry the same beliefs.
• At times may consider changing stand from his convictions as a sign of moral weakness and continue to hold on to erroneous ideas.
• May get blinded by his own thinking and not welcome new ideas and approaches and at times even scoff at them. He may become a hindrance to progress.

Soft Skill/Competency: Listening

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Also read “Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Musings” at http://shyam-bhatawdekar-musings.blogspot.com/)

Refer previous sixteen posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills", "Composure or Coolness", "Decision Making",
"Integrity", "Team Work and Team Building", "Developing People", "Conflict Management", "Leadership" and "Motivation".

Explanation of the Competency "Listening"

• Considers listening as one of the important human skills and an important subset of the communication skills.
• Believes that listening strengthens the quality of communication, interpersonal relations, human relations, emotional intelligence, conflict management and team management.
• Every interaction requires one to respond and since the quality of response depends on the quality of listening, tries to improve quality of his listening constantly.
• Listens more and more within the sphere of other’s HSoftware (overall mental frame consisting of values, knowledge, paradigms and will power) rather than within the sphere of his own HSoftware. (Refer for more details the book titled "HSoftware- Shyam Bhatawdekar's effectiveness Model":http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=hsoftware&x=16&y=21)
• Thus, listens to understand the other person and not just to react, reply, control or manipulate the other person. By understanding the other person properly, can respond or act in the best possible manner.
• Does not ignore the other person by showing indifference or by pretending to listen.
• Generally respects other people and demonstrates openness and trust through his body language and spoken words.
• Encourages two way communication.
• Focuses on what the other person is saying and pays attention and tries to understand what the other person is saying.
• Tries to understand what the other person is saying by being interactive with him by giving him the feedback of his understanding.
• He tends to be empathic in his listening the others. Puts himself in other person's shoes.
• In becoming an empathic listener, listens not only with his ears but also with his eyes and with his heart.
• Listens for feeling and meaning.
• Understands that every human being needs psychological survival- one wants to be understood and appreciated by others, one wants others' affirmation and validation. By being an empathic listener, satisfies this need of other human beings.
• Then, paves way to influencing the people in right directions by diagnosing the issues and concerns of others in a better way for effective problem solving.
• Promotes a more participative style of managing by involving people.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May spend disproportionately more time in listening at the cost of other equally important functions.
• In order to promote participation may tend to allow people to speak out whatever they wish to even when they are at tangent and thus mismanaging the time.
• May be seen by many people as person always available to offer shoulder to cry on.
• Being listened to intently may be construed by the speakers as if what they are speaking is being accepted by the listener as correct though in fact they may be wrong.

For free tutorials on "Train the Trainers" program, refer: http://train-trainers.blogspot.com/

Soft Skill/Competency: Motivation

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Also read “Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Musings” at http://shyam-bhatawdekar-musings.blogspot.com/)

Refer previous fifteen posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills", "Composure or Coolness", "Decision Making",
"Integrity", "Team Work and Team Building", "Developing People", "Conflict Management" and "Leadership".

Explanation of the Competency "Motivation"

• Appreciates the need for motivating self and others.
• Believes that by motivating the people they are in a position to give out their best i.e. they try their best to achieve their maximum potential for action, expression, growth, and achievement.
• Gives high degree of emphasis equally on "concern for people" as well as on "accomplishment of tasks".
• Analyzes the factors that motivate the people.
• Knows that different people are motivated by different factors and their weightages are not the same.
• Therefore, tries to analyze at each individual level what motivates each individual including self.
• Employs formal surveys and informal observations for understanding the motivational needs of the people.
• Is fully conversant with Maslow's need hierarchy theory, Herzberg's two-factor theory and other theories of motivation.
• Accordingly, incorporates the required challenges and responsibilities in the jobs of self and other individuals in addition to providing continually improving working relations and conditions.
• Provides appropriate freedom and autonomy on job as per individual's requirements.
• Helps in structuring and designing the various human resources and other policies of the organization keeping in mind the motivational requirement of its employees.
• Provides adequate and appropriate psychological strokes to the direct reports as well as all the other associates.
• On completion of projects and jobs by teams and individuals, celebrates the success and gives due recognition to them openly.
• Incorporates required combination of motivational factors so that people give their best as individuals as well as the teams.
• Generally respects all the people.
• Is a good listener.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May show a very softening or compromising attitude towards the people giving them a wrong impression of being a weak leader.
• May spend disproportionately more time in trying to sort out even those motivational aspects that are of very minor nature or which in fact are imaginary and not real.
• May tend to attribute failure of employees as their lack of motivation even when other factors may be primarily responsible for their failures.

For free tutorials on "Train the Trainers" program, refer: http://train-trainers.blogspot.com/

Soft Skill/Competency: Leadership

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Also read “Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Musings” at http://shyam-bhatawdekar-musings.blogspot.com/)

Refer older fourteen posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies “Result Orientation”, “Problem Solving”, “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, “Action Orientation”, “Creativity”, “Interpersonal Skills”, “Communication Skills”, “Composure or Coolness”, “Decision Making”,
“Integrity”, “Team Work and Team Building”, “Developing People” and “Conflict Management”.

Explanation of the Competency “Leadership”

• Believes in and practices highest degrees of ethic, integrity and honesty.
• Can envision the advancement and growth opportunities.
• Possesses abilities for high degree of conceptualization, strategizing and analysis.
• Demonstrates high achievement orientation. Therefore, emphasizes commitment, accountability, action orientation and results.
• Is dynamism personified. Exudes energy and enthusiasm.
• Takes initiatives and is self starter.
• Adept at interpersonal relationships and puts emotional intelligence in action.
• Excellent communicator.
• Possesses high learning orientation and learns from all the quarters all the time. Quick in grasping new pieces of knowledge and practice.
• Is excellent in directing and controlling functions.
• Uses his excellent influencing skills for bringing out the desired consensus, decisions and actions.
• Very good at decision making processes and once decisions are reached, displays firmness and decisiveness in implementation.
• Displays required flexibility and adaptability in different situations and times.
• Demonstrates tremendous self-confidence as well as moral and physical courage.
• Can lead people from the front when necessary. Is capable of setting an example.
• Is great team builder and team player. Provides necessary support and cooperativeness.
• Motivates self and other people excellently well and people then give out their best in terms of their potentials and stretch.
• Balances his high concern for task accomplishment with high concern for the people.
• Possesses high business acumen.
• Is politically astute.
• Very good at general judgment and intuitions on issues and people.
• Develops many next line leaders.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May end up being a very strong leader leaving people looking up to him for any thing and every thing.
• May become indispensable thus posing a question of succession- after him who?
• High result and action orientation may create an imbalance between concern for task accomplishment and concern for people.

For free tutorials on “Train the Trainers” program, refer: http://train-trainers.blogspot.com/

Soft Skill/Competency: Conflict Management

Refer previous thirteen posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills", "Composure or Coolness", "Decision Making",
"Integrity", "Team Work and Team Building" and "Developing People".

Explanation of the Competency "Conflict Management"

• Recognizes the fact that conflicts are quite natural in any organization and yet these need appropriate redressing to move on with apt solutions.
• Therefore, is willing to take up the responsibility of managing and resolving the conflict.
• He can think through clearly in a conflicting situation.
• In any conflicting situation, he keeps his eyes constantly on the desired goals and therefore, does not drift away from them despite conflicting arguments and points of views.
• Listens well and patiently all the conflicting arguments and presentations.
• Controls the people and their communication patterns in the discussions that takes place when resolving a conflict.
• Facilitates the innovative and creative thinking of the people caught up in the conflict.
• Does not take sides of any particular set of people or their thinking. Rather, tries to facilitate working out genuinely appropriate and optimal solutions.
• Amply demonstrates his positioning as a person with high objectivity in every conflicting situation.
• Most of the times aims at a win-win solution as opposed to win-lose, lose-win or lose-lose solutions or a compromised solution.
• Contributes his own inputs, ideas, creativity and analysis to supplement the missing or erroneous information and thus uncover the real issues and reasons that led to the conflict. Then proceeds to help find the answers.
• Gains agreements without leaving behind any bitter taste or disrupting the human relationships.
• Is proactive and as far as possible anticipates the conflicting situations and dissolves them well before they turn into conflicts.
• Is good at managing various types and complexities of conflicts involving insiders as well as outsiders.
• Is highly skilled in tackling the people who have a knack or habit of becoming unnecessarily difficult and nasty.
• Can use humor or any other intervention to diffuse even highly volatile conflict scenarios.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May perceive even the day-to-day routine issues as a conflict and start using his conflict management skills in an elaborate manner.
• Thus may get involved in every situation of small little conflict even the ones that might better get solved by delegation.
• May start contributing with out-of-proportional over-zealousness or intensity and rather than diffusing the conflict, may end up opening up Pandora's box and thus aggravating the conflict.
• May overemphasize on always realizing a win-win solution where a less than win-win solution may look more suitable as a starter.

Soft Skill/Competency: Developing People

Refer previous twelve posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills", "Composure or Coolness", "Decision Making",
"Integrity", "Team Work and Team Building".

Explanation of the Competency "Developing People" 

• Genuinely believes in developing people and and likes it.
• Does not feel threatened in sharing his knowledge, experience and skills with other people while training/coaching, mentoring and developing the people.
• Uncovers the potentials of the people and their weaknesses and directs his efforts to further boost their strengths, develop them for new competencies/skills and reduce the critical weaknesses.
• Also uncovers the career goals of the people and their specific aptitudes.
• Accordingly, plans his development efforts.
• Assigns those assignments and tasks to people which will help people in development of their competencies and skills.
• Assigns the assignment gradually, from the routines assignments to more complex and challenging assignments.
• Can design and develop necessary class room and on the job training and development modules and sessions.
• Can design and develop necessary training and development material.
• Handholds the beginners and then allows adequate freedom as they start acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills.
• Can design, develop and implement required methods of evaluating the learning performance of the people.
• Periodically measures the progress of development of people and provides them the necessary feedback and further mentoring and coaching.
• Allows enough opportunities for people to apply their creativity and new approaches while they are learning.
• Facilitates accelerated pace of learning as per the needs of organization, business requirements and grasping power of the trainees. Designs and installs new approaches, technology, techniques and tools for achieving it.
• Motivates the people in their learning efforts and helps in building up their general morale.
• Instills in the people the self esteem and self worth as they pick up greater degrees of knowledge, experience and competencies/skills.
• Provides adequate opportunities and circumstances for the direct reports to get more visibility with senior and top management and the executives of the organization who matter.
• Encourages his senior and expert staff to train and develop the other people.
• Methodically pushes the promising people to take up higher responsibilities and thus helps in their development and career advancement within his own department(s) or in outside departments.
• Prepares development budgets carefully to take care of all the immediate, short and long term requirements and convinces the management to seek approval of the budget.
• Perceives the money, time and efforts on developing the people not as expenditure but as investment.
• Keeps a tab on investment on developing people and their actual development.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May end up spending disproportionately more time in development aspects of people as compared to achieving the other short and long term requirement of business for which he is accountable.
• May be over optimistic in training and developing each and every person to the hilt.
• May err on developing only selective people who seem to be potential learners and leave out out the others in the team to justify and ensure his developmental achievements.

For free tutorials on "Train the Trainers" program, refer: http://train-trainers.blogspot.com/

SoftSkill/Competency: Team Work and Team Building

Refer previous eleven posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills", "Composure or Coolness", "Decision Making" and "Integrity".

Explanation of the Competency "Team Work and Team Building" 

• Believes that working together with others or in teams gives higher synergies to self and the teams.
• Believes in win-win approach.
• Therefore, is positive and enthusiastic about team work and team building.
• Contributes significantly when working as a member of a team or when working as a team leader to build a strong team.
• Respects all the members of the team.
• Cooperates with every team member and the team leader.
• Provides help and support to those team members who are in need of help and support.
• Shares relevant knowledge and information with all the team members including the team leader.
• Maintains the required level of communication in terms of quality, quantity and timeliness with the team members and the team leader.
• When working as a team leader, facilitates developing team goals with team members' participation.
• Motivates the team members while working as a leader of the team or even when working as a member of the team.
• Helps to build up high team morale.
• Creates a sense or feeling of togetherness and cohesiveness among the fellow members.
• Understands the group processes involved in team working and implements these processes for the advantage of the team.
• Has knowledge of various systems, tools and techniques of team building and team work and uses them effectively as appropriate.
• Is good at resolving the conflicts that might arise due to diverse personalities of various team members.
• When the members seem to drift away from the shared mission, goals and priorities, brings them back on the desired focus.
• Seeks for each and every member's active and enthusiastic participation all the time and accordingly motivates the members who seem to be getting disinterested or tuned out from time to time.
• Makes every member feel that each one's work or contribution is equally important.
• Shares credit for success of team with all the others in the team.
• Celebrates the team's success together with all the others in the team.
• Makes sure that the various teams do not become islands in themselves and form unnecessary boundaries around them.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• Team work may get confused with excessively unnecessary participation of all the members on all the points or issues.
• Too much of participation may lead to delays. Time management and time lines may get screwed up.
• At times team working may end up being goody goody with each other all the time trying not to hurt each other emotionally or intellectually resulting in mediocre performance and results.
• Leader of the team may lose sight of being tough and firm in a team situation even when such a stance may be more appropriate in difficult or tough times.
• There is possibility of some members becoming inactive in a team since they may think that others in the team will take care of things even if they do not perform and their non-working may not even get noticed.

For free tutorials on "Train the Trainers" program, refer: http://train-trainers.blogspot.com/