Technology is constantly changing the way we work and power skills are becoming increasingly more important for how we show up at work. Power skills are transferable in-demand people skills that help you be successful in the workplace as you continue to navigate interpersonal relationships. They are non-technical skills.
As Josh Bersin has shared, the skills of the future are not technical, they’re behavioral. This means your people skills are critical in how you use them to collaborate with people around you and how you can leverage them to create a more inclusive workplace.
Let’s dive into five essential skills that will help you create an inclusive workplace today. But first: As you read, it’s important to keep in mind that you have the ability to develop any of these skills.
Effective communication
The ability to convey ideas, thoughts, knowledge and data through written, oral and visual means for the message to be understood with clarity and purpose.
As many organizations continue to work in a hybrid work environment, it is important to be clear on communication styles for how you connect with colleagues, knowing that people understand and express themselves differently.
It is key, especially as a leader, to adapt to specific needs of the audience you may be speaking with. Some examples to consider when communicating are to add closed captions when you are on video calls, repeat questions to include those dialing in remotely, use inclusive language that does not discriminate and being intentional with your team for everyone to understand what clear communication looks like at your organization, which includes specific communications training for all staff or sharing resources like “Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win” for colleagues to learn how to be better at effective communication.
Critical thinking
The ability to analyze information and situations to make informed decisions while solving problems in the workplace.
We all want to have problem-solvers in the workplace who will help address business challenges and needs. As leaders, it is critical to consider who is in the room helping with the decision-making to ensure you have diversity of thought and perspectives when collaborating on a project. Invite your colleagues to key meetings or create stretch projects that will allow them to utilize their critical thinking skills. When you have the same people in the room making the decisions all the time, it will not help with creating new ideas or ensuring new voices are heard. You also do not want to fall into groupthink where people reach an agreement without critical reasoning or reviewing alternatives.
Harvard Business Review shared that companies with diverse talent pools are 70 percent more likely to report that their organization captured a new market to bring more innovation to the company. Challenge yourself to invite new perspectives and leverage diverse thoughts for better business outcomes.
Collaboration
The ability to work effectively with others toward a common goal.
Eighty-six percent of employees in leadership roles blame lack of collaboration as the top reason for workplace failures. There is an opportunity to get ahead of this challenge by ensuring your teams are better at collaborating, which will result in lower employee turnover and more employee satisfaction.
Assess your teams to see how your people are currently collaborating and evaluate where there are areas of improvement. For example, if an employee is remote or an individual contributor, brainstorm together on how they could collaborate with other team members to make them feel more included as part of the team. It could even be a new project they work on that will allow them to work with people across different departments or give the more visibility.
Active listening
The ability to listen to a speaker to understand what they’re saying and being able to reflect back on what was shared.
According to HBR, the average rate of speech for most Americans is around 125 words per minute and this is why active listening is important to be able to retain information shared with you. It is also more than what you hear from the other person and consider the 7-38-55 rule developed by Albert Mehrabian that 7 percent of meaning is communicated through spoken word, 38 percent through tone of voice and 55 percent through body language. This can help you be more inclusive in the workplace by listening to understand what may be non-verbal including feelings and values shared by colleagues.
To proactively address this at work, the Center for Creative Leadership recommends the six key active listening skills include paying attention, listening without judgment, reflecting on what you heard, clarifying the content, summarizing the key themes, and sharing ideas, feelings and suggestions after you clearly understood the speaker.
Emotional intelligence
The ability to manage both your emotions and understand people around you to have self-awareness and self-management.
The post-pandemic world has recognized the importance of empathic leaders and people with high emotional intelligence will create psychologically safe environments for their teams to speak up and share their voices to feel seen, heard and respected. The three types of EQ you can work on to drive inclusion include self-awareness to understand your strengths and weaknesses along with how people see you, mindfulness to self-regulate yourself knowing what you have control over for your attention and attitude; and openness to be curious and hear constructive feedback and different perspectives. A great resource to read with your team to increase your EQ is the book, “Emotional Intelligence 2.0,” which covers self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. EQ will help you change the way you work with people around you and set you up for success when working with different types of people.
This is a starting point for power skills that will set you up for success in the workplace when nurturing an inclusive place to work. Remember that leaders with impressive technical skills may not advance in their careers if they lack these essential power skills that you can learn and apply moving forward in your own career. No matter what your role is, you have power and influence in your workplace that impact your colleagues around you.
