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How can soft skills provide a competitive advantage for your business? Why are professionalism and critical thinking important on the job? How have you, or can you, make these skills a part of your culture? What do you do to make your employees feel safe?

Soft skills provide a competitive advantage by complementing the hard/technical skills that are required, to create the most positive experience for everyone. For example, if you run a fast food restaurant, if the cashiers always have a positive and generous attitude, this gives a positive experience and the customer will most likely come back. The three areas of soft skills are professionalism, critical thinking and followership. There are basic soft skills in order to just function at a minimal in an organization. For example, when it comes to followership, Jon Steinberg mentioned that you have a common style. He mentioned you couldnt be on a football team without playing in pads. In addition, there must be a general getting along with your teammates and everyone must wear the same jersey. Like a job that employees must wear the same uniform. These skills are just a requirement for the job and falls under the followership. Also, there is a level of soft skills where it adds value at a high level to the organization, the employee, and the customer. These would fall under Professionalism and Critical thinking. This is where the competitive advantage comes in.

When it comes to the soft skill of professionalism, such as self-evaluation, and good work habits, they are important if you would like ongoing growth and success in your organization. Possessing and performing these skills at high-level in an organization are important to positively affect the bottom line. Self-evaluation includes assessing performance against goals, guidelines, and parameters of that are proven to make the company successful. This skill is about the individual growing to meet the standards and proven best practices that will ensure success for individual, company and customer. Critical thinking includes proactive learning and decision making. Critical thinking is important because this skill, if not mastered, can cost the company money and customers if employees arent recommending the best solutions. By actively practicing these soft skills to master, employees are armed with information which will help them make the most informed decisions.

My sphere of influence are my students I teach. I can make these skills part of my lecture by giving situational based questions when it comes to giving a client an IT solution based on the needs of that client. I can make my students feel safe by making sure they know the rules for behavior and also the consequences. I go over this in the syllabus directly. I give them specific examples of what not to do in a classroom which are the policies of our college.