What are softs skills and why are they important for a startup’s success? Join us to know about the soft skills of entrepreneurs. Firstly, soft skills are often overlooked. Secondly, we may not understand how they are relevant to entrepreneurship. However soft skills would go a long way in helping entrepreneurs run their firms successfully.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are essentially people skills. These are also called noncognitive skills. However, these skills are less apparent.
” The skills, abilities, and traits that pertain to personality, attitudes, and behavior rather than to formal and technical knowledge “
Moss and tilly, 1996
Some of the important softskill areas are:
- Communication skills
- Interpersonal skills
- Creativity
- Innovation
- Crisis management
- Adaptability
- Proactivity
- Leadership
- Mindfulness
Importance of soft skills for entrepreneurs
Soft skills were not considered important for a long time. In fact, even now some people consider it less important than hard skills. There are two reasons for the same:
- It is difficult to assess the level of soft skills. You can test a person for their score in English grammar. However, it is very difficult to score someone on how they use language to convince other people.
- It is difficult to appropriate success to soft skills. This is another challenge. When we look at the success story of a startup, we often overlook the soft skills. We see an iPhone as a brilliant product but it’s not easy to see how Steve Jobs made the development possible.
This difficulty in assessing the level and impact of soft skills for entrepreneurs may veil their true importance. Nevertheless, soft skills are even more important than hard skills(technical skills) for success. This is especially true for an entrepreneur.
There is an undeniable pay gap between Caucasians and blacks in America. Some researchers who have studied this gap found that a lack of soft skills could be one of the contributors to this pay gap. Similarly, soft skills have been found to be an essential skill for entrepreneurs.
Developing soft skills for entrepreneurship
Some important soft skills for entrepreneurs:
| Soft skills for entrepreneurship | Examples |
|---|---|
| Communication skills | > Ability to pitch your idea succintly and clearly. > Explaining complicated technical details to your non-technical team members. |
| Creativity | > Generating new ideas to market the product. |
| Innovation | > Creating a valuable feature that people have not thought before. > Improving on the product offered by the competition. |
| Crisis management | > Handling social media crisis effectively. > Reconcilation of differences in the team. |
| Adaptability | > When one idea does not seem to work, you realize that and more on. > Trying different approaches to reach out to the potential customers. |
| Proactivity | > Assessing that other startups have adopted a competing technology because it is better. In this case, an entrepreneur can choose to be proactive and go ahead with new technology. |
| Leadership | > One of the most used term but difficult to define. > An entrepreneur with good soft skills will show empathy towards the team members’ struggles. |
| Mindfulness | > One of the upcoming soft skills for entrepreneurs. > A founder who is mindful, is observant and non judgemental about the issues. She handles them with a cool mind. |
Research insights on soft skills for entrepreneurship
Bolton and Lane have highlighted that entrepreneurial orientation rests on three broad types of soft skills:
- Creativity & Innovation
- Risk-taking
- Proactivity
Creativity
Creativity can be developed in a lot of different ways. Entrepreneurs who want to improve this soft skill can try different things. Firstly, there is a strong link between expertise and creativity. If you are an expert in a skill, you tend to generate more solutions. Secondly, you need to get into a ‘system of creativity.’ Acknowledge the importance, embrace uncertainty and failure. Thirdly, you also need to use tools to your advantage. It need not be complicated software. For example, you can use a notebook to jot down your ideas. Fourthly, you can use brainstorming to generate creative ideas.
Risk-taking
One of the important skills for entrepreneurship is the ability to take risks. Although it is a trait, there are ways to improve risk-taking. Firstly, you need to accept that risks are part of the startup game. Secondly, you need to ensure that you don’t go overboard. Take only calculated risks. Thirdly, plan well for handling the risks. That is it. If you follow these tips, you can manage your risk fairly well.
Proactivity
Is being proactive good for an entrepreneur? And it is really a soft skill for entrepreneurship? The answer is Yes! Being proactive will improve your wellbeing. An entrepreneur not just takes risks, he/she also engages in a highly stressful life. Learning this soft skill will help you improve your wellbeing.
On the other hand, it will also help you professionally. Here are some ways in which you can be more proactive:
- Have a business plan, a vision, and a mission. All your actions should be aligned with these guiding lights.
- As an entrepreneur, you should always have a bird’s eye view. Other employees need to focus on nitty-gritty while you have to focus on the startup itself.
- Develop a habit of asking for help. A lot of founders try to do work on their own. This can over-burden you. Be proactive even in seeking help.
- Have a “Plan B”. Always. It even helps to have a plan C in place. Situations may change fast. You have to steer your course as per the need arises. Being proactive in these cases is really a helpful soft skill for entrepreneurs.
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