Human Abilities

I PART: 3 CATEGORIES OF HUMAN ABILITIES

We talk a lot about soft skills but until now we have not done a more theoretical article about it. Soft skills are extremely important for everything in professional and personal life. The 500 most powerful CEOs in the world were surveyed by FORBES magazine and concluded that 75% of their professional success had depended on their human abilities (non-technical competences) and not on their technical skills. Unfortunately, however, this is not taught at university, in the world’s top business schools or in colleges.

For this reason, and after several years of research, LEADEM has created a classification of these skills that we are going to show you in this first article.

In this first installment we will explain the three kinds of Human Abilities (soft skills) and later, we will use other articles to break down some of them in more detail. Of course, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or want more information.

LEADEM divides human skills into three categories:

  • 1-Leadership
  • 2-Interpersonal
  • 3-Behavioral

Leadership

Leadership is one of the three categories of Human Abilities. What does leadership consist of? According to the RAE, a leader is ‘a person who directs or guides a group, who recognizes its authority’. In other words, to complete this information, this would mean that a leader must know how to help his team, train it, elevate it and serve as an example for his colleagues.

But how and when are these abilities demonstrated?

The leader is someone who knows how to speak in public, who knows how to convince, to express himself, who is able to manage crises and also has an entrepreneurial character, someone who pulls others along and lifts them up.

On the other hand, do you think it is necessary or is it only possible to exercise leadership by having teams under one’s command?

No, a leader is not a leader by having teams, but by knowing how to transmit, knowing how to guide others in times of storm, knowing how to bring out the talent of each one, knowing how to encourage them, train them, elevate them, knowing how to make good decisions, differentiating the important from the urgent, as well as being enterprising, proactive and creative, regardless of the fact of having or not having a team.

Meaning of LEADEM

That is why our company is called LEADEM. Real leaders are not CEOs or team leaders, but people, regardless of whether they have a team or not, who are able to work hard and well, who have strong personal values and principles and who are generous to others. When you have the combination of these three factors: you have a real Leader in front of you. And that is what we at LEADEM are dedicated to: detecting and training Leaders to improve the world from our field.

Interpersonal

Interpersonal Relationships

The category of interpersonal relations is the second category. This is the most innate part of the human being, the social human being par excellence, as Aristotle said. It is about the innate (and worked) capacity of each person to communicate with others, to transmit messages. But also to negotiate, to persuade, influence and convince. Interpersonal relations are key to building any type of personal or professional relationship.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is also part of relational skills as well as the development of trusting relationships.

This category seems simple to understand but it is extremely important. Many conflicts are caused by the inability of the actors to discuss and understand each other’s reasons. By simply daring to ask the other person why he or she is reacting, we could avoid many conflicts and, therefore, unpleasantness…

Relationship among individual or within a group

In this section it is also important to differentiate between relationships between two individuals or in a group. The dynamics are different; the larger the group, the more the interpersonal relationship changes as there are many more listeners. In other words, the number of interlocutors will affect the way of communicating.

The three categories are interconnected and cannot be understood without each other. However, the relational is, if possible, the most human and perhaps the least talked about today in comparison with Leadership, and yet, the one that is most needed in these times of digitalisation and therefore, robotisation of society.

Behavioural

These are the most personal skills and the most deeply rooted in one’s upbringing. They are all those values and principles that have been with us since we were children. For example, what our parents told us when we were angry at school or when we misbehaved. It is also what we have learned by observation and adapted as our own. In some cases, because of a rejection of what we have experienced at home, we have values that are the opposite of those of our upbringing, but which have proved to be much more effective for coping with life than those learned during childhood.

In any case, regardless of where we have taken these principles from, they are the values that guide us and allow us to make decisions and know how to behave in all kinds of situations. These ‘norms’ will also dictate our attitude to life, including who we hang out with, who our friends and partners will be. Later on, they will be values that we will pass on to our children and that will mark our lifestyle and, of course, our professional career.

In Western culture, most professionals are guided by Judeo-Christian values, but these have also evolved with the evolution of society itself. Although it is not possible to make generalisations, it has been proven that consistent behaviour helps you to keep friends. Or, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explains very well, empathy at work produces more committed collaborators with the company and, as a consequence, more income. In other words, although everyone has their own values and principles and ways of behaving and functioning, it is undeniable that there are values that are more efficient for living in society and living well than others. But we will talk about all this in more detail in another article.

It is difficult to teach because they are values that are deeply rooted in oneself. However, if we will be able to understand which values help us more and allow us to have better results, then we will be able to understand which values help us more and allow us to have better results.

Do you have questions about Human Abilities? Do you want to tell us about your experience or contact us? Don’t hesitate, we will be happy to talk to you!

Maria Escuer
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