85% of one's success at the workplace is attributed to soft skills and only 15% to technical skills.

Everyone talks about their favorite languages - JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Python... but what about soft skills?

Hello friends, my name is Maxwell Diogu, a Software Developer, and Technical writer; call me Dev Dr.😊. I’m excited to write about soft skills as this is one of my favorite topics. In this series of Developing Soft Skills, together we will look through essential soft skills that we need regardless of where we work, who we work with, and who we are.

What Are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are personal attributes that have a positive impact on your interaction with people. Unlike technical skills or “hard” skills which measure your knowledge, soft skills are about your behavior and attitude to work.

Why are soft skills so important?

Technical skills may get you the job, to stay in the job you need soft skills.

Yeah, that’s right. To succeed in the workplace, a college degree isn’t necessarily enough, nor is years of experience on the job. That’s because the most in-demand skills that employers crave are the intangible but important qualities that enable you to work and interact with people effectively. To succeed at work, you must get along well with all the people with whom you interact, including managers, co-workers, clients, vendors, customers, and anyone else you communicate with while on the job. These are the types of skills all employers value. This is why it is important to improve your people skills. Soft skills are not as hard to learn as Technical skills. This means anyone can learn them and become experts at them.

Examples Of Soft Skills

Here are some soft skills that are important in our daily lives:

• Communication
• Leadership
• Work Ethics
• Critical Thinking
• Positive Attitude
• Team Work and many more.

N.B - Each of the skills listed above has a sublist of skills under them and we will go through them in the course of this series.

So, When Do I Start Learning Soft Skills?

Oh yes, Peter Quill said it all. There's no better time to start improving yourself than now. Start developing proper listening skills, improve your communication skills, be conscious of the way you manage time, and be mindful when making decisions.

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Thanks for reading to the end😊. I hope this gave you clarification on the need for soft skills. Do well to give feedback and comments. If this article helped you, like this post, and follow me for more exciting posts.

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Until next time, Bye👋