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When it comes to many professional development programs, the soft skills are often ignored.
It’s unfortunate.
As you ascend in your career, you’ll have shifting job expectations. The higher you are on the leadership ladder, the less of the “real work” you used to do.
You now lead others and are counted on to inspire, persuade, and provoke the change necessary to ensure others stay motivated and productive. Consequently, a great deal of your time is in meetings and presentations, communicating your way and motivating others to the top.
The call to action:
Change the focus of your career development and learn to become an exceptional communicator.
Whatever method you choose to improve your communication and presentation skills, many will seem unnatural, uncomfortable, and awkward. Communication skills and public speaking bring fear and frustration to many.
Rarely do these skill developments happen spontaneously. Like climbing a mountain, your ability to speak powerfully brings a new set of struggles. In both cases, it’s in the act of overcoming challenges where professional and personal growth occurs.
Consequently, the heightened focus on these skills is not just about communicating or climbing your metaphorical mountains.
It’s about you and your success – and the recognition that it’s rarely a straight line to the top. You’ll zig and you’ll zag knowing that these tools and tactics will help you to keep moving up. As you contemplate the challenges that lie ahead, look to the mountains for inspiration, and reflect on these words of wisdom to propel your career to new heights:
“Challenge is the core and mainspring of all human activity. If there’s an ocean, we cross it; if there’s a disease, we cure it; if there’s a wrong, we right it; if there’s a record, we break it; and, finally, if there’s a mountain, we climb it.” James Ramsey Ullman, Climbing Historian
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