Employers look for candidates who possess a specific set of skills and abilities. Here, we discuss the most important and sought-after personal qualities for your career advancement.When it comes down to searching for a job and workplace success, your attitude and personality traits play a significant role as they will define your success at a new company.
Below, we will walk you through these essential qualities and skills that will help you achieve job advancement.
- Stress tolerance
The ability to manage stress effectively is key to workplace success. Employers are looking for people who can work well under pressure and perform their duties diligently. Keeping emotions that arise due to stress such as frustration, worry, nervousness and anger under control is vital, especially in high-paced environment.
Negative emotions can quickly spread across an entire team and cannot only ruin work performance but also affect the dynamic. So, if you want to maintain good relationships with others and stay productive, you need to learn how to cope with stress in a healthy manner. The goal is to not let anything affect you more than it should. This is the attitude to success.
Maintaining peace and harmony in the workplace will require some effort and this should start with you. Here are a few ways that will help you deal with stress:
- Take deep breaths, relax and find something positive about the situation.
- Avoiding people and reject behaviours that make you feel overwhelmed.
- Write down your worries in a notebook to get unwanted thoughts out of your mind.
- Picture yourself angry – nobody likes it when they get mad, red-faced and out of control.
- Don’t forget that in life, some events will inevitably turn out the way you don’t want them to.
- Remind yourself that you are only human and you can’t control everything.
- Set new goals to look forward to.
- Integrity
Having integrity means being reliable and accountable for the actions that you take. This quality is important in the workplace for three main reasons, the first being self-confidence – doing what’s right to you and not questioning yourself, the second one being gaining the trust and respect of others and, finally, becoming a good leader.Honesty and professionalism are important components of integrity, and if you are being considerate to others, you can learn how to develop this at work.
If you want to measure your integrity, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you leave work early when there is no possibility of anyone finding out?
- Do you accept full responsibility (or your share) when things don’t go well?
- Do you share the credit when things go right?
- Do you confront wrongdoing, even if it means facing a supervisor?
Checking yourself every step of the way can help you stay professional in everything you do and ensure that you are on good terms with your employer.
- Independence
Nobody likes being told what to do all the time and some degree of independence is always needed in any work environment. But being independent doesn’t mean doing whatever you want. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. Being independent means being able to take care of your needs while taking responsibility for your own decisions and paying attention to the people and the environment around you. When you learn how to work independently you have the freedom to explore your skills and talents. This could also make your employer want to see more of your capabilities and ideas.
- Diversity sensitivity
In today’s workplace, cultural sensitivity and the ability to build rapport with other people in a multicultural work environment is highly valued by employers.
Diversity, which encompasses race, gender, ethnicity, age, cognitive style, education and more, has become a central point of discussion especially in business settings, where companies are aiming to be as inclusive as possible.
Being able to show respect, treat others equally and come up with constructive ways to work through cultural and social barriers or any conflicts that may arise, are key elements to success.
To demonstrate this skill on your CV, make sure to demonstrate your volunteering, projects you completed, or university work that involved working closely with people from different backgrounds.
- Drive
Self-motivation is one of the most important qualities that reinforces continuous learning and success, as it helps you realise your goals and facilitate progress. Without drive, or motivation, it’s impossible to advance in your career. Employers value workers who are driven by their career goals. The first step to developing your self-motivation, is to pick a job or career that you love. It’s important to keep yourself happy and productive, but also satisfied with what you do for a living.
- Initiative
No employer or manager wants to have to tell you what to do all the time – they are busy people too. Their responsibility is to teach you the basics and the unwritten rules of the company culture. But, from that point on you don’t have to rely on them for every decision you make.
Taking initiative means coming up with creative solutions on your own, testing them out and finding out what works and what doesn’t. This is all about trusting your instinct and not being afraid to make mistakes. If you have ever been a volunteer, you must have an idea of what taking initiative means.
- Confidence
Everything starts with confidence, and if you want to make others believe in you, you first need to believe in yourself. This applies to every job interview you go to, presentation you deliver, meeting you participate in and project you are lead.
Confidence is all about knowing what you are good at and recognising the value you can bring to a team. Not only that, but confidence inspires trust, loyalty and on an individual level, it can help you cope with stress.
If you think you lack confidence, there are a couple of things you can do. Start by recognising aspects of yourself that you would like to improve on and then take action; join the gym, refresh your wardrobe, practise power poses and work on your conversation skills. Building on confidence is a process, but it’s well worth the effort and it could help you land your next job.
- Persuasion
Whether you are trying to impress employers, or want to work in a career where persuasion is essential, you need to possess excellent communication and negotiation skills. Persuasion often refers to the ability to influence other people, make them believe in your ideas, encourage them to see what you are seeing and feel what you are feeling.
Believing in your abilities and being emotionally intelligent is a prerequisite to becoming an effective persuader. Kurt Mortensen, one of America’s leading authorities on persuasion, negotiation and influence, says that successful persuaders often share some common characteristics that help them bond with other people emotionally. They keep promises and are reliable, sincere, and genuine; they appear to know their subject well and support their arguments fiercely.
There are methods you can utilise to tap into your enthusiasm:
- Celebrate accomplishments at your job, no matter how minuscule they might be.
- Try to incorporate your passions into your daily duties.
- Think of skills you want to attain, using your job as that apparatus.
- Put yourself in a state of enthusiasm, by reading up on developments in your industry.
- Always ask questions, even if you think they might be silly.
- Creativity
Without creativity, there can be no innovation. Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties and embracing change. This is all about inventing, growing, taking risks, breaking the rules, making mistakes and having fun while you are at it.
For employers, this is a skill that can lead to innovation in the workplace, making it a much-sought-after quality.
