Learn or leave the market

SOFT SKILLS FOR THE HEAD 
OF A COMPANY
If you hold or want to hold an executive position, leadership soft skills 
are the most important ones for you. These include the following 
abilities:
▶
The ability to persuade and motivate your employees, bring enthu-
siasm in them.
▶
The ability to take the initiative and responsibility for any situations 
and failures.
▶
The ability to solve problems and come up with logical solutions 
that will satisfy everyone.
▶
The ability to delegate your authority to people who have suitable 
competencies.
▶
The ability to plan, manage and monitor the work process.
▶
The ability to listen, support and provide constructive criticism.
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 Chapter 7. Skills of Businessmen and Leaders of the Future.
123
▶
The ability to learn from your mistakes and stay positive.
▶
The ability to persistently keep trying something you cannot do yet 
or something you cannot do right away.
The importance of leadership skills increases dramatically if you decide 
to launch your own startup.
Also, as a leader, you will have to work with people, which makes socia-
bility especially important. For this reason, you need to:
▶
Master the technique of active listening.
▶
Know work etiquette in order to excel at conducting both negotia-
tions and business correspondence.
▶
Be able to express your thoughts clearly (both verbally and 
in writing).
▶
Understand the non-verbal cues of your interlocutors when they 
do not want to talk to you or, on the contrary, are ready to make 
a deal.
You will also have to mentor your team. Therefore, you need to be able 
to explain goals to them and stimulate brainstorming when necessary. 
Your employees will be more productive if you learn to recognize their 
achievements and simply thank them for their work.
In order for your business to stay afloat, you also need to form a strong 
team as quickly as possible. To do this, you first need to evaluate the 
strengths and weaknesses of your employees to find out what kind 
of person is missing from your team. Properly allocating resources and 
areas of responsibility is the only way to achieve the maximum effi-
ciency of your employees.
Your team consists of living human beings, and they each have their 
own problems and differences. You should treat them with understand-
ing. You need to be able to resolve conflicts and have a sense of humor, 
which will help you smooth things over even in the worst situations.

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Skills of Businessmen and Leaders of the Future. Chapter 7.
124
Employees will only be truly invested in their work if they trust you and 
are not afraid that you might trick or deceive them. Therefore, you need 
to know how to apologize and admit your mistakes, keep your word, 
be consistent and generally act ethically. This is why you need a highly 
developed emotional intelligence, which will allow you to put yourself 
in the place of others and understand what they want to hear from you.
If you want your business to be flexible and adaptable to changing 
market conditions and never get stuck in a dead-end, you must be flex-
ible too. For that, you need to be able to compromise and be on the 
lookout for unexpected solutions to company problems. Being devoted 
to your work will help: learning new things is much easier and more 
enjoyable if you and your team love what you do. Listen to the opinions 
of other people, especially if they come from your team, and share their 
ideas. Alternatively, create your own — corporate values help a lot with 
team building!
The most important thing that you need to understand is that you cannot 
become a successful leader unless you want to be a role model for others 
to follow. For example, it is foolish to demand your subordinates not 
to be on their phones instead of working, if they themselves catch you 
playing games or using social media in your office all the time.