Soft skills refer to non-cognitive abilities that allow us to interact with others and ourselves, efficiently and creatively solve problems, recognize and manage emotions, set goals, and plan to achieve them, etc.
Soft skills are extremely important because their benefits go far beyond academic or professional success. Individuals with positively developed soft skills tend to be happier, exhibit pro-social behavior, and maintain a high level of health.
List of examples of soft skills
Soft skills, currently referred to as “21st-century skills,” are the most valued and considered necessary for optimal development in our current social environment. They can be classified as follows:
- Creativity: Fundamental for personal and societal growth, considering that life itself is constant movement and fluctuation.
- Innovation: Involves creating things that can be beneficial for the current moment.
- Critical Thinking: Allows reflection on new or established aspects with the ultimate goal of generating new responses.
- Problem Solving: Indispensable ability to navigate satisfactorily through everyday crises.
- Teamwork: A very satisfying mode of work that promotes positive development of human relationships, yielding very beneficial results by combining the strengths of different human potentials.
- Collaboration: Along with multidisciplinary teamwork, this represents a great advance in human and results-oriented development.
- Effective Communication: The ability to positively, clearly, and respectfully convey a message, along with active listening and empathy, fosters personal relationships and project success.
- Concentration: Good ideas and, above all, good developments arise from moments of deep concentration.
- Organizational Skills: Essential for the effective development of any project.
- Willpower and Effort: Necessary to persist in action despite obstacles encountered along the way.
- Flexibility: The ability to effectively navigate changes that occur day by day.
- Adaptability: The ability to adjust to necessary changes.
- Initiative: Allows the opening of new paths beyond what is already established.
- Autonomy: The ability to carry things forward independently.
- Sociability: The ability to maintain positive social relationships.
- Intercultural Competence: With globalization, it becomes increasingly necessary to navigate optimally in different cultural environments.
- Productivity: Ensuring that the final result of work is a useful product, produced efficiently and effectively.
- Leadership: Facilitates the organization and development of groups and projects.
- Responsibility: A necessary skill to guarantee seriousness and rigor in our work.
- Emotional Intelligence: The ability to manage emotions, both self and others, in a healthy and respectful manner, fostering pro-social relationships.
Given the importance of soft skills in life performance, it is crucial to develop them from an early age. The methodology used could be as follows:
- ïFrom the educational institution, a plan should be developed for implementing the action strategy; evaluating the soft skills to be developed, establishing the necessary technological policy, and providing the necessary training for the teaching staff.
- ïFrom the pedagogical perspective, learning activities will be formulated to enhance value education, commitment to society, collaborative spirit, teamwork, promotion of self-esteem, flexibility, adaptability, and the use of ICT. All this is achieved through the use of games adapted to each educational level and the natural learning process of children.