Four Essential Soft Skills That Leaders Can Adopt For Spectacular Growth and Happy Employees

In the modern digital technology era, especially with the millennials rapidly joining the workforce, most employers are looking to hire people who have excellent “soft skills” along with possessing measurable hard skills too. There are tons of books written on soft skills for the employee, but what about soft skills for the company? When companies have a workplace culture and core values in place, the organization can go from being just a place that people work at, to becoming the best and brightest place to work. Can you spot the difference? The workplace that is the best and brightest has employees who value their job and are inspired to do more by giving their all.

Of course, every organization is different, but core values are built in the culture of the organization. When the CEO or corporate leader builds these values, employees can quickly learn about teamwork, respect, honor, and empowerment, plus they can see the value in working for a winning company. Having these important values built into a corporate culture helps to create team players that ultimately benefits the entire company.

Some of the best and most empowering companies to work for have core corporate values that help to build a solid company. While it’s important that all employees possess key soft skills, it’s imperative that corporations instill at least some corporate values. Here are four core soft skills and corporate values that can strengthen any company and in the process, awaken and inspire the individual employee: Empathy, Responsibility, Passion & Agility.

1: Empathy

An important skill is to always “treat everyone the way you would like to be treated” and in my company it has become our founding principle. When companies maintain that their employees become part of a family culture, everyone can be humble and be able to put ourselves in another person’s shoes. When companies create an atmosphere where every employees is an important part of the organization, the company becomes more than a paycheck to employees – it feels like family.

2: Responsibility

A responsible leader always believes in creating utmost value for an organization and his team by serving them with selflessness. When a corporation adds responsibility as a core value and soft skill, employees learn from example from the leader and fellow coworkers. Responsibility starts with making a decision by considering information on hand rather than not making any decision at all. It is better to fail and learn by taking calculated risks rather than doing nothing at all.

Another part of this core value is social responsibility:

It is important that all leaders and their employees are also responsible corporate citizens. When a company instills social responsibility for its employees, it sends a message that everyone needs to do something that impacts the world for the greater good. At my company, our employees always wanted to create a better world for our future generations. Collectively as a company, we decided to educate and support the aspirations of over 125 underprivileged children across the world with the help of World Vision, Plan USA & Spoorthi Foundation for the last six years. Our collective goal is to extend this opportunity to over 500 kids by 2025.

What has this done for our employees? It makes them excited and proud to be part of a company that takes social responsibility on as a personal project that is done by most in the company. It’s an empowering moment.

There is an old proverb which says, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime” Leaders have the capability of making this happen by instilling this important core value into their business, startup or organization.

3: Passion

Successful people always have a clear purpose in mind. The correct purpose will unleash one’s passion and help others achieve their ultimate goal with a burning desire. With passion, no obstacle is too big to stop you from achieving your goals. But without passion, any obstacle can stop you.

Creating and maintaining a “growth-oriented” culture provides enormous growth opportunities to the people who are proactive, passionate, ambitious, and grow with the company through innovation and participation. It all starts with the CEO or designated corporate leader because his or her infectious passion will resonate throughout the organization inspiring others to experience growth not only personally but also professionally.

4: Agility

In any field, the CEO, entrepreneur and the company want to continue to deliver outstanding value and exceed customer expectations by learning and adopting changing market and tech trends. In this rapidly growing fast paced environment, one needs to educate others and help them adapt to the change with agility before company or technology over grows oneself.

This reminds me of a famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow and learn as if you were to live forever.” It’s important for every member of the company to continue learning and improving to remain competent and relevant.

When entrepreneurs and corporate leaders practice core values and soft skills in their own organizations, they are setting themselves and their employees to become world class innovators. In turn, these skills help deliver significant value to their customers by leveraging innovation while creating rich corporate culture in everything the company does.

In the end, a company that has a rich corporate culture that incorporates essential soft skills like the four explored in this article not only results in better team building, empowerment from within, and creates responsible citizens in a growth-oriented organization but these ideas also create respect for each member of the team. Why not create a place where everyone is proud of working at every day?