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/

Soft Skill/Competency: Integrity

Refer previous ten 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" and "Decision Making".

Explanation of the Competency "Integrity"

• Holds to a laudable value structure all the time and in all the situations.
• Is led by principles and values in all the walks of life- a real principle centered person.
• Even under pressure from anyone, does not yield to unscrupulous behavior.
• Practices integrity while dealing with everyone and therefore is regarded as trustworthy person.
• Demonstrates fairness consistently. Does not play favorites.
• Is never motivated by ulterior motives.
• Is always truthful, does not lie.
• Does not turn and twist the information to gain something or to score a point in an underhand manner.
• Uses confidential information confidentially. Does not divulge the confidential information even under any body's pressure.
• Behaves ethically personally and professionally.
• Does not indulge in any kind of corruption or corrupt practices.
• Lives personally and professionally following the legitimately formulated laws of the land- does not flout or circumvent them.
• Motivates others to practice integrity by being an example to others.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• Does not understand the difference between the core values and the day to day practical paradigms and may confuse paradigms for values. May, inappropriately, turn many issues into unwarranted ethical battles.
• And therefore may become unnecessarily difficult, stubborn and inflexible in personal and professional dealings with the people involved. May even get into a fight or a conflict in situations where there should be none.
• May pose as a self-righteous person.
• May become judgmental.
• May present his truthfulness and honesty impolitely and inappropriately to such an extent that the others may start avoiding him.

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

Soft Skill/Competency: Decision Making

Refer older nine posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills", "Communication Skills" and "Composure or Coolness").

Explanation of the Competency "Decision Making"

• Believes that decision making is an important soft skill or soft competency and one should learn to become more and more decisive.
• Takes better decisions.
• Asks questions and collects or arranges to collect data and information required to make a better decision and analyzes them to arrive at a better decision satisfying the various parameters related to decision making like overall cost, overall profitability, timeliness, implementability, human angles etc.
• Motivate and facilitates others to take better decisions.
• Take decisions by self or by involving all the concerned persons under day to day, difficult, complex and highly complex situations within the given authority impacting the domain under his control or the domains outside his control.
• Wherever and whenever necessary, thinks over the decisions that might impact his authority area or other areas but over which he does not have the formally given authority. Then, he puts forth them as his suggestions or recommendations to the concerned people or agencies.
• Creates many alternatives before deciding on one or few of them as his final decision(s).
• Is capable of sorting out the entangled issues, short term gains versus long term gains conflicts, and various other dilemmas and then steer clear of them to arrive at the decisions.
• Is adept at carrying out trade off analysis of the decision options.
• Is capable of taking decisions even under ambiguity, uncertainty and pressure.
• Has knowledge of utilizing various decision making models, systems, tools, techniques and technology and in real life does use them when appropriate.
• Uses his learnings from the previous experiences in order to take decisions and encourages others to do the same.
• Is courageous enough to take and implement decisions (even the tough ones) in situations where a weak person may not like to get involved despite the fact that decision making there is a great requirement or is an imperative.
• Uses his intuition and judgment where compete data and information are not available and is willing to take calculated risks under such conditions.
• Sticks to his decisions but is also flexible to change his decision if someone else brings forth a better alternative or he himself stumbles on it later.
• Takes responsibility for the outcomes of his decisions even in case of the adverse outcomes.
• Encourages participation of others in decision making process as appropriate.
• Implements the decisions or facilitates others in its implementation.
• Maintains a broad perspective or keeps a big picture at the back of decision making process.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May become overzealous in taking decisions and may step beyond his authority area or step on some one else’s authority area when not appropriate.
• Being strong in taking decisions may get into habit of giving out decisions rather than evolving the decisions with adequate participation of others concerned.
• May jump to conclusion without doing necessary analysis.
• May sacrifice one factor of decision making against the other factors in the enthusiasm of putting lopsided weightages to the involved factors.
• May tend to belittle the associates who may seem inferior in taking decisions thus hurting their self worth and confidence.
• May not delegate or empower others in decision making thus leaning towards centralized decision making.

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

Soft Skill/Competency: Composure or Coolness

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

Refer older eight posts to read the detailed explanations on competencies "Result Orientation", "Problem Solving", “Self Confidence”, “Self Development”, "Action Orientation", "Creativity", "Interpersonal Skills" and "Communication Skills").

Explanation of the Competency "Composure or Coolness"

• Exercises self-control under trying or tough circumstances or situations or
  under any kind of pressure.
• Responds proactively rather than just reacting immediately or without
  thinking.
• Responds appropriately without getting perturbed by the stressful news,
  situations or events of moderate and heavy stresses.
• Manages negative emotions like anger, frustration, fear, dejection etc
  effectively and if necessary, in exceptional cases, shows or shares or vents
  them out without hurting self or others.
• Does not get personal or does not raise an accusing finger at others while
  dealing with a difficult problem or conflict or failure. Rather, concentrates on
  solving the problem.
• Motivates others to concentrate on finding solutions to problems rather than
  getting overwhelmed by stresses and strains involved.
• Remains focused, tries to think clearly and takes appropriate decisions even
  under ambiguous, doubtful, stressful, dilemma and crisis situations.
• Steers effectively through an emotionally packed event.
• Exudes calming effect on the people around.
• Is capable of counseling the people under stresses and strains.

Pitfalls to be Avoided

• May be branded as cold and unemotional person.
• May control emotions and not show them or vent them out even when it is
  appropriate to do so and in the process may hurt or harm self or others.
• May belittle or discard others' feelings or emotions and decisions based on
  them.
• May even get branded as uncaring type.

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