Holidays are a time to sit back, chill, and spend time with your family and friends. But, they are also a great opportunity for you to learn new and in-demand skills to keep on improving. Nowadays, it is crucial to have technical as well as soft skills to excel in your career. It does not matter if you are from IT, management, engineering, or arts, here are the top 5 in-demand skills that you must learn for your career as well as yourself.
- Leadership skills
Leadership is famously linked with being charismatic and having a downright extroverted personality. So if you have an introverted or quiet personality, you may think “I cannot be a leader because my voice is too low” “I am not confident enough” or “I don’t have people skills.” But, guess what. Some of the most influential and powerful leaders in the world like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mahatma Gandhi, and Eleanor Roosevelt are introverts!
Not everyone wants to be a leader and that is okay. Some want to contribute and not manage or lead. But, leadership is not only about leading. It is also about being a problem-solver, a strategic thinker, a good communicator, and a team player. Being a problem-solver will help you tackle the daily challenges of working at your job/business and strategic thinking and planning will lessen the uncertainties.
The book Leadership Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by Dr. Carrie Picardi, an organizational psychologist for over 20 years, is an excellent guidebook for learning more about the traits and qualities of leaders and different styles of leadership.
- Decision-making skills
If you find yourself stuck on everyday questions and not able to decide which path to go on, you may benefit from developing your decision-making skills.
You may need to take several decisions at your job and for your company too. While being thoughtful and cautious with your decisions is a good thing, you do not want to come off as an indecisive and confused person.
Developing your decision-making skills will make you confident in your own abilities. Mark Koscinski in his book Decision Making Essentials You Always Wanted To Know gives an accurate representation of how decision-making works and how correct decisions are made.
- Project Management skills
Whether you are handling a big project at your company with multiple people involved or a freelancing project all by yourself, it will be a mess if you lack the skills to manage it properly.
There are several aspects to a project from planning, execution, monitoring progress, keeping track of expenses/income, coordinating and engaging stakeholders, and of course, ensuring that the quality of work in the project is not compromised at any level. This requires you to have technical as well as soft skills.
Nowadays, an Agile way of working is gaining momentum as a new way of handling projects. Kalpesh Ashar, author of Project Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know and Agile Essentials You Always Wanted To Know says, “Project Management is a skill that each one of us needs - not just at work but also at home. We take up several projects in our professional as well as personal life. Although several project management skills can be intuitive in nature, others need to be acquired.” His books are perfect guides if you are looking to get a headstart in understanding what project management is and the various tools used in the field.
- Financial skills
This is one of the most important life skills that people of all ages should master. It may be a tedious task for many people who do not have a knack for finance and accounting to compute their debits and credits but learning how money works and flows in businesses (and your personal life) will make all the difference.
You can educate yourself by picking up Financial Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know which explains fundamental financial concepts in lucid language. You can also watch financial videos on Youtube from The Financial Diet or read educational articles on Investopedia.
- Marketing skills
Big companies like Nike, Apple Inc., Zara, etc market their products by connecting with people on an emotional level. Marketing is a group of processes or procedures for connecting with and providing value to customers.
From researching your target customers, developing a marketing strategy, executing it, and being updated with the current trends in the industry, a marketing manager has a fun job. If you want to become a marketer, it is important for you to learn technical as well as people skills.
But in order to get started on your marketing journey, you need to know its components. For that, you can pick up Marketing Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by industry expert Callie Daum. In this book, you will learn the fundamentals of traditional as well as digital marketing. For learning more about digital marketing, you can also pick up the Digital Marketing Essentials book.
Vibrant’s Self-Learning Management series is a compilation of management books for students and professionals alike. Pick them up to upskill yourself!
