There’s more to being awesome than programming talent.
In life, your soft skills can pay you huge dividends. Strong soft skills do more than help you relate to others. It also builds trust. When people trust you, they are more likely to give you more business, impacting your bottom line.
These skills include:
- Communication (written and verbal). Being able to get your message across is vitally important, as is appropriately receiving and documenting requirements.
- User empathy. You need to be able to see things from the client’s point of view. How does your application affect them, and how can you make their life easier?
- Being a team player. You won’t get far working alone. It’s essential to have strong working relationships with others. You need to be able to leverage the power of the group.
- Teaching and sharing. To make your team more robust, you need to be able to help them thrive and grow.
- Resolving gray area issues. Sometimes problems simply are not black or white. How you handle things when the issues are fuzzy will significantly impact your level of success.
- Discourse. Can you have a friendly discussion, support an argument, and reach a satisfactory resolution with opposed parties? Negotiation is another skill that is useful here.
The better you get with your soft skills, the greater your perceived value will be. In business, perception is everything.
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