The IUP Journal of Soft Skills 

About: The IUP Journal of Soft Skills is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Soft skills & Employability. Over the lifetime, 75 publications have been published receiving 322 citations.

Do Soft Skills Matter? - Implications for Educators Based on Recruiters' Perspective

Abstract: Soft skills are very critical in the workplace today. These skills mirror the ability to communicate and interact with others. They are unique because they emphasize on action. They have become indispensable for every person in the present context. This paper deals with the significance of soft skills for getting a job and for further promotions and progress in the workplace. People who are flexible and have the zeal to understand and learn new technologies are sought after by organizations as part of their growth process. The need to provide training in soft skills is seriously being considered today. This study is an attempt to find out the importance that middle to top level executives, who are involved in recruiting employees, attach to soft skills.IntroductionOrganizations today have transformed into places where people cannot function in seclusion. Teamwork or group work is the need of the day in most industries. There are many organizations that do not necessarily design jobs on the basis of a team. Nonetheless, they require a fair amount of interaction between people within and across functional realms to successfully carry out a piece of work. The opportune discoveries made through the Hawthorne studies are now accepted as basic and universal principles of life in any organization. In this setting, soft skills have become indispensable to function competently in any interpersonal relationship.'Soft skills' is an umbrella term covering various survival skills such as communication and interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, leadership qualities, team skills, negotiation skills, time and stress management and business etiquettes. In recent years, the corporate world felt that soft skills are crucial at the workplace and its training must be a part of the curriculum during education. In career terms, soft skills soften the edges and provide a competitive advantage over others. However, those who ignore this critical aspect of personality learn its importance the hard way when their promotion is overlooked.Soft skills are "attitudes and behaviors displayed in interactions among individuals that affect the outcomes of various interpersonal encounters" (Muir, 2004). These are skills that refer to the ability to communicate and interact with other employees in a positive manner.Soft skills are necessary in the workplace for professional success. They are vital at every level of an organization if it is to function smoothly and productively. Hard skills are technical competencies and domain knowledge, while soft skills are a combination of people skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills and emotional intelligence. Companies search for a melange of both soft and hard skills among their employees to deliver goods and services effectively to their clients. It is rightly said that people rise in organizations because of their hard skills and fall due to a shortage of soft skills.Kelly Pierce points out in "eSight Trend Watch: Increased Value in Soft Skills," that "There is a growing recognition that interpersonal skills are not simply helpful in business today; they are essential in today's highly focused, downsized and streamlined organizations where people tend to work in a series of small, often temporary workgroups or teams organized to accomplish short-term objectives." He lists such qualities as "attitude, initiative, cooperation, teamwork, communication, perception" among the skills that are valued in the contemporary workplace.Soft skills deal with these behavioral aspects relevant in personal and corporate life. Today, we find employers taking hard skills as a given or as the basic requirement and the soft skills 'including communicating, relationship building, work ethic and problem solving' (Johnson, 2006), as an important consideration in deciding upon the choice of a candidate for any job.The purpose of this paper is to understand the prospective employers' perception about importance of soft skills while hiring MBAs and provide information that may be utilized by educators to enhance the soft skills of students entering the workforce. …

Effective Communication Management: A Key to Stakeholder Relationship Management in Project-Based Organizations

Abstract: Efficient stakeholder relationship management is an essential requirement for any successful organization. It is a decisive factor and has a direct impact on total environment and profit results of the organization. A methodological approach is needed for proactive stakeholder relationship management in view of the varied stakeholders who have altogether different sorts of expectations and needs. Effective communication management can serve as a strong tool to systematically manage the stakeholder relationships at multiple levels. The main objective of the study is to explore the use of effective communication in stakeholder relationship management and also to find out a methodological framework to use communication as an effective tool for managing successful stakeholder relationships at all levels. The study is conducted through a questionnaire survey and structured interviews of stakeholders working at different project organizations. The results indicate applications of communication in managing multiple functions of stakeholder management. A framework for effective communication management is suggested as a part of the results which can be used by practitioners in all types of project organizations for successful stakeholder relationship management.

Self-Awareness - Key to Effective Leadership

Abstract: Many theories and thinkers have attempted to explore what truly makes a person emerge as a leader. Successful leadership often surfaces when people become aware of critical personal experience s in their life, understand the driving forces, respond by rethinking about self, redirect their moves and reshape their actions. Stanford rates soft skill like self-awareness as one of the pillars of managerial capabilities that predicts managerial effectiveness and leadership success. It suggests that IQ and technical skills are far less important to leadership success than self-awareness. In a world of unprecedented business complexities, leaders, besides explicit knowledge, need an inner compass of self-awareness to walk the tight rope of leadership. The paper explores the concept self-awareness and traces the two essential components of self-awareness. The paper dwells on the reasons for self-ignorance arising out of individual's inability to exploit two components. It also underlines how self-awareness contributes to self-actualization and managerial effectiveness.An impartial and objective attitude toward oneself ... is a primary virtue, basic to the development of all others.- Allport (1937, p. 422)Many theories and thinkers have attempted to explore what truly makes a person emerge as a leader. Successful leadership often surfaces when people become aware of critical personal experiences in their life, understand the driving forces, and respond by rethinking about self, redirect their moves and reshape their actions. The book, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership states that only those who scan their experiences to know who they really are and realize how they should live ultimately emerge as leaders. Stanford rates soft skill like self-awareness as one of the pillars of managerial capabilities that predicts managerial effectiveness and leadership success. It proposes that IQ and technical skills are far less important to leadership success than self-awareness. It exhorts that self-awareness-an exact estimation and evaluation of one's own personality and a lucid understanding of how others perceive one-is an indispensable trait that all good managers strive to develop to be successful leaders. A survey of 75 members of the Business Advisory Council of Stanford Graduate School rates self-awareness as the superior competency that leaders must develop. Harvard Business School enumerates self-awareness among the key attributes that their program seeks to develop in its candidates. Dartmouth, University of Chicago, and other Business Schools are all designing programs that focus on self- awareness as the vital step in leadership development. A survey of business leaders indicates that self-awareness is vital to success in organizational environments, and many business schools are introducing tools and processes to make the students become more self-reflective. In a world of unprecedented business complexities, spiraling competition and economic turbulence, leaders and managers dealing with competent employees and ever demanding customers, need an inner compass of self-awareness to walk the tight rope of leadership. Besides explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge related to self can be the hallmark of managerial success. The paper explores the concept self- awareness and traces the two essential components of self-awareness. Firstly, it dwells on self-ignorance arising out of an individual's inability to exploit two components. It also underlines how self-awareness contributes to self-actualization and managerial effectiveness.Self-Awareness and LeadershipKnowledge of self has been considered to be at the very heart of human behavior and Management. Self-awareness in general denotes subjective and accurate knowledge of one's inner self, e.g., mental state, emotions, sensations, beliefs, desires and personality. It comprises beliefs, intentions and attitudes about oneself based on experiences in life. …