SOFT SKILLS

(BAS 105)
Unit-5: Work- place skills:

Syllabus : Leadership qualities; Impact, Communication skills

for Leaders: Listening and Responding; Mental health at work
place: Managing Stress; Techniques: Application of 4 A’s;
Avoid; Alter; Access; Adapt

CO 5 - Students will be able build up personal traits that will make the
transition from institution to workplace smoother and help them to excel in
their jobs.

Stress and it’s Management (4 A’s)The 4 A’s of Stress

Management
When your stress level exceeds your ability to cope, you need to restore the
balance by reducing the stressors or increasing your ability to cope or both. Try
using one of the four A's:

1. Avoid

Stress can often be avoided by planning ahead, rearranging surroundings and

carrying a lighter workload. Approaches include the following:
 Take control: Taking control of stressful, routine

tasks helps to build confidence. For example, leaving earlier for work or taking a
new route can ease the stress of traffic.

•  Avoid bothersome people: Physical distance from someone who is

causing stress can relieve tension.

•  Say “No”: Most people have a lot of responsibilities and very little
spare time. For personal mental health, it is good to say “no'' to social
invitations & extra responsibilities at work.

•  Prioritize a to-do list: Making a to-do list helps the mind let go of
stressful thoughts regarding required tasks. Scratching an item off the to-
do list can create a feeling of accomplishment.
 • 2. Alter
When stressful situations cannot be avoided, behaviors, communication,
and time management may need to be altered. Approaches include the
following:
 Ask others to change their behavior: Small issues
often snowball and turn into huge problems. It’s
okay to ask others to change bothersome behavior.

•  Communicate openly: Honesty is always the best policy. When

sharing feelings, using “I” statements rather than “you” statements
helps to negate any
blame on the other person.
•  Manage time better: Grouping similar tasks together
can increase efficiency, resulting in lessened stress.

•  State limits in advance: Instead of stewing over a colleague's

nonstop chatter, politely start the conversation with, "I've got only
five minutes to
cover this.”
3. Access

Many times, acceptance is the best way to avoid stress. Approaches include the
following:
 Talk with other: Feelings are legitimate even if

frustrating situations cannot be changed. Discussing stressful situations with a

friend who actively listens and understands is helpful.

•  Forgive others: Forgiving takes practice. Learning forgiveness

releases negative energy from the mind and body.

•  Practice positive self-talk: Positive self-talk can reduce stress and

help maintain objectivity.

•  Learn from mistakes: Mistakes are inevitable and should be used as

teachable moments rather than create feelings of self-loathing.

4. Adapt
Adapting often involves changing expectations, which in turn, lowers
stress levels. Approaches include the following:

•  Adjust standards: Perfection is impossible. Striving

for perfection can cause feelings of frustration and guilt. Adjusting
 personal expectations can reduce stress.

•  Practice stopping bad thoughts: Negative thoughts should

immediately be replaced with positive ones. Refusal to replay a
stressful situation in the mind may actually cause it to be less
stressful.
•  Adopt mantra sayings: Mentally repeating confident sentences,
such as, “I can do this,” has a positive effect on stressful situations.

•  Create a list of happy resources: Making a list of happy

experiences, situations and thoughts can put things into perspective.
Looking back on this list during a stressful situation can help calm
the mind.

•  Look at the big picture: Figuring out if something will matter

in one year or in five years is important. If it won’t, letting it go can
relieve stress.

4.1 Resilience & Work-Place Skills

Resilience is a key strategy that helps employees tackle stress, a
competitive job market, workplace conflicts, and address challenges
on the job. Improving resilience is important because employees
identify work as the number one stressors in their lives.
Resilience enables a positive approach to work and outlook on life,
which in turn enables better problem- solving and helps to maintain
motivation. They may even gain a sense of fulfillment from being
able to work through them and grow.

Stress is a mental situation in which people feel pressure to perform or act.

Stress management is a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies aimed
at controlling a person's level of stress, especially chronic stress, usually for the
purpose of and for the motive of improving everyday functioning.

There are basically four types of resilience.

1. Physical Resilience: Our body’s capacity against

physical challenges.

2. Mental Resilience: Ability to mentally cope up with a

crisis.
 3. Emotional Resilience: Ability to handle stressful and
emotional situations.

4. Social Resilience: Ability to handle one’s behaviour

in society.

Flexibility in Thinking and Behavior

 Flexible thinking and behavior is a characteristic of high-level resilience. This
is the ability to consider multiple perspectives, to consider different possible
understandings of a situation or problem, as well as resulting different
possibilities for action.

 Flexible thinking gives us greater choice and so a greater sense of control,

contributing to an increased sense of psychological well- being. Our thoughts
thus inspire our behavior and reaction towards a situation.

Tolerance and Self-Belief

 Tolerance helps employees build bridges and capitalize on the differences

present in the workplace, such as those related to diverse cultural backgrounds.
For a small business, tolerance is an essential part of working toward goals and
developing creative solutions to a wide range of workplace issues and difficulties.

•  Tolerance means to accept everyone's opinions without fighting. Being

tolerant is very necessary for a peaceful and loving environment. Those
people who do not have the ability of tolerance often get angry on
conflicting issues and destroys the tranquility of the place.

•  Demonstrating tolerance in the workplace requires a concerted effort

to develop an understanding of other’s background, experiences and
beliefs.

•  Self-belief is confidence in your own abilities or judgment. When you

believe in a person, it's because they believe in themselves and their
motivation. A confident individual is an inspiring individual who leads by
example. Your self-belief can bring out the best in others and help them
 perform because they've seen first-hand the potential it unlocks.

Team-Work and Communication:

A team is a group of people who work together toward a common goal.

Teamwork skills are the qualities and abilities that allow you to work well with
others during conversations, projects, meetings or other collaborations. Having
teamwork skills is dependent on your ability to communicate well, actively listen
and be responsible and honest.

Here are some of the essential Teamwork Skills required in academic and
professional field.

1. Communication: Allows you to interact

2. Time Management: Allows you to manage time
3. Problem Solving: Allows you to find the best possible means of solution.
4. Listening: Listen to others for different vision
5. Critical Thinking: Allows you to think critically to take better decision
6. Collaboration: Getting the help of other to do a work jointly.
7. Leadership: Lead the people with their mindset but achieved by your
procedures.

Without communication we can’t expect a Team to work together to achieve

a common tasks.

Here are some of the roles of communication in Team work:

1. Communication helps to make a Team.

2. Communication helps to connect the teammembers.

3. Communication helps to share ideas andsuggestions with each other.

4. Communication helps them to know theircommon goal.

5. Communication helps to come up with the bestsolution to achieve team’s
vision.

6. Communication built trust among team members.

7. Communication shares feedback which lead themembers of the team

into the right direction.

8. Communication is the way to solve problems of ateam and resolve

disputes among them.
 9. Communication gives the freedom to everyindividual to say and express.

10. Effective communication reduces the chances ofconflicts among the team
members.

11. Communication is a way to extract the best fromthe team members.

12. Communication gives the equal importance to theteam members.

Compassion in Leadership:
 Compassion is the quality of having positive intentions and real concern for
others.

 The listening process involves four stages: receiving, understanding,

evaluating, and responding. Completion of all these stages successfully is
necessary.
 Good listening skills make workers more productive. The ability to listen
carefully allows workers to better understand assignments they are given. They
are able to understand what is expected of them by their management.

 Responding adds action to the listening process. Oftentimes, the speaker

looks for verbal and nonverbal responses from the listener to determine if and
how their message is being understood and/or considered.

Role of Responding in Listening:

1. Responding is a way to add action to the processof listening.

2. Listening with responding creates a bond betweensender and receiver.

3. Responding in any of the medium (verbal or non verbal) makes the

speaker aware to continue withsharing.

4. In a way, responding properly while listeningcompletes the process of

communication.

5. Responses make the speaker feel comfortable.

6. Listening is a receptive act, responding while

doing this turns Passive Listening into Active Listening.

Speaking Skills:
•  Speaking skills are defined as the skills which allow us to
 communicate effectively. They give us the ability to convey information
verbally and in a way that the listener can understand.

•  Speakingskills not only defines accurate delivery of words but

delivery of message with correct expression and emotion. This helps in
easy understanding of any message.
•  The four elements of speaking skills:
1. Vocabulary
2. Grammar
3. Pronunciation
4. Fluency
•  The ability to communicate with your peers, superiors, and colleagues
is the need of the hour in every work-place. It allows us to form
connections, influence decisions, and motivate change. Without
communication skills, the ability to progress in the working world and in
life, itself, would be nearly impossible.
•  It is said that message can be expressed accurately if sender has good
speaking skills.

Compassion in leadership creates stronger connections between people. It

improves collaboration, raises levels of trust, and enhances loyalty.

Importance of Compassion in Leadership: Compassion attracts agreement.

Compassion create trust.
Compassion makes people responsible for duties. Compassion attracts better
relationship. Compassion connects people with emotions. Compassion keeps
people positive and optimistic. Compassion gives a feel to be noticed.

Communication Skills:
 Workplace communication is important to your growth and success. It allows
everyone to share their inputs and feel that their ideas are being valued.

•  Effective communication skills in the workplace reduce office

conflicts, lower the risk of projects going sideways, and make work more
enjoyable.
•  Communication in the workplace is one of the signs of a high-
performance culture.
 •  Exchanging information and ideas within an organization is called
workplace communication. However, effective communication occurs
when a message is sent and received accurately.
Requirement of Communication Skills:
1. Be a Active Listener
2. Command Over a language
3. Command Over a Subject
4. Understanding to give sequence to the ideas
5. Understanding of Logical Explanation
6. Well Presenter

Few communication skills required at workplace:-

1. Showing respect
2. Active listening
3. Displaying positive body language
4. Be willing to ask questions
5. Understanding email etiquette
6. Remaining open minded
7. A willingness to give feedback

Listening and Responding:

 Listening is key to all effective communication.

Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily
misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks down and the sender
of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.

Positive Thinking: Controlling Mind

•  Positive thinking, or an optimistic attitude, is the practice of focusing
on the good in any given situation. It can have a big impact on your
physical and mental health specially at workplace. That doesn't mean you
ignore reality or make light of problems. It just describes a positive
approach to deal with in every situation.

•  Controlling one’s mindset to look at things with a positive point of

view is advantageous for a workplace and contributes in healthy
 environment at work.

•  It impacts the way you think about your work and the way your
colleagues and customers see you. These are just a few of the advantages
of maintaining a positive mindset at work:
1. Positive thinking relieves stress
2. Positive thinking boosts productivity
3. Positive thinking improves problem-solving
4. Positive thinking helps decision-making
5. Positive thinking helps increase pain tolerance
6. Positive thinking improves our relationship
7. Positive thinking reduces your blood pressure
8. Positive thinkers take better care of themselves
9. Positive thinking helps you age gracefully
10. Positive thinking is good for your heart and
head

 Benefits of mind Control:

1. Develop Self-Esteem
2. Cure Fears
3. Quit Bad Habits
4. Becomes Spontaneous and Social 5. Fight Depression
6. Overcome painful situations
7. Become more intuitive
8. Add colours to your character
9. Change your reactions
10. Makes you more reflexive