The role of Soft Skills in Entrepreneurship

“In the twentieth century, reading, writing and arithmetic were enough for a workforce wedded
to manufacturing. But they are not enough nowadays. Workers need to think critically,
collaborate with other workers around the world, know how to communicate ideas, and be
creative and confident.” (Gary J.Beach)
In the modern times, our economy is tilting towards the achievers with the perfect blend of soft
skills and hard skills. Each field values those minds who have the skills to utilize their unique
“human” talents. These talents refer to those abilities which we can term as the backbone for the
professional success. This has become the basic requirement to possess both soft and hard skills
which lead to a complete personality development. Hard skills are more along the lines of what
might appear on one’s resume i.e. academic qualification, work experience and level of
expertise. Soft skills is a term often associated with a person's "EQ" (Emotional Intelligence
Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal
habits, interpersonal skills, managing people, leadership, etc. that characterize relationships with
other people.
Cut throat competition in business growth pushes organizations to hire smart people with the
effective understanding of different dimensions including communication skills, soft skills and
personality development, in the world of profession. As far as soft skills are concerned, these are
personal character traits and interpersonal skills to acquire the ability to work with others. The
aim of this paper is to highlight the need of soft skills that should be made one of the most
indispensible discipline and phase to teach and improve. These skills are the real panacea in
solving the problems of the students in a creative and effective way. Soft skills cover a wide
spectrum of abilities and traits. By acquiring these abilities, one can easily face the modern
challenges in the business and industry world. In the book, “Common-Sense Plus”, Herbert
N.Casson discusses various suitable senses that can add the genius capabilities in the person to
lead as an effective entrepreneur in the modern era. The list is as under:
COMMON SENSE +
 Plus Teach ability
 Plus Initiative
 Plus Self-Development
 Plus Efficiency
 Plus Cooperativeness
 Plus Management
 Plus Healthy Mind and Body
 Plus Stout Heartedness

Many qualities and requirements are needed to build the structure of an efficient
entrepreneurship and always the foundation of the structure must be common-sense. In the
business world, wisdom is: knowing what to do the next. Skills are: knowing how to do it; and
Profit is: the result of doing it. Now if one lacks skills, he can acquire it. He must have good
judgment which is one of the most valuable qualities in a business man. To acquire it is no easy

matter. The best measure can be to increase knowledge. It is always comprehensive measure to
take the wiser decisions. The major cause of bad judgment is a lack of knowledge about the
problem that is to be solved. I would like to quote here the words by Mr. Milton Wright who
inspires the creative minds to proceed. He says, “Concentrate on matter you are able to handle,
and have no doubts about your ability to handle them.”
The professionals, who are both skilled in their fields and in soft skills, are the ones who will get
the corporate world’s doors open for them. It’s no longer enough to fill your resume with grades
only. Hard skills vary based on the job, but soft skills are required for every job.
It is very much essential to possess this” toolbox of capabilities” because by using these tools,
one can
 Move ahead more quickly in their career
 Build working relationships critical to success
 Easily make decisions in times of ambiguity
 Easily cope up with the challenges
Most of the companies have stated that they no longer require the academic degrees only as the
qualifications of the candidates. Instead, they want to recruit newcomers who have a broad range
of life and educational skills. A strong set of soft skills are critical to success in the work place.
For decades most of the employees as well as educators observe the lack of soft skills. In our
education system, we are not paying much attending to promoting the soft skills. It is the need of
the hour to cultivate these skills in our students so that they may prepare well to face the
challenging situations in the workplace.

The report asked chief human resources and strategy officers from leading global employers
what the current shifts mean, specifically for employment, skills and recruitment across
industries and geographies. The chart shows exactly which of these skills will be most important
for the future of work. Creativity will become one of the top three skills workers will need. With
the avalanche of new products, new technologies and new ways of working, workers are going to
have to become more creative in order to benefit from these changes. Active listening,
considered a core skill today, will disappear completely from the top 10. Emotional intelligence,
which doesn’t feature in the top 10 today, will become one of the top skills needed by all.
Education researcher Ellen Galinsky identified seven essential skills and says, “These skills
weave together our social, emotional and intellectual capacities. They help us go beyond what
we know—and tap our abilities to use all that we have learned in these different areas.”
It is the general point of view that the task to improve the soft skills or to change the personal
traits is extremely difficult, if not possible. The question arises, Is it important to teach and
measure these skills? The corporate Trainer and instructional designers have strikingly simple
answer to this question:”There is a lot of argument in industry as to whether it is possible to
enhance soft skills in few hours of training, especially when one considers the fact that a person
has lived with those traits all his life. To this the answer is harsh but real – a professional who
wants to excel in the work place does not really have a choice. The educational institutions have
the major duty to set the curriculum including the subject of soft skills. Unfortunately, our
students cannot buy these skills at the stores. Theory based learning cannot be the only measure.
The first step in improving soft skills of students is to raise their awareness about the importance
of soft skills and the consequences of shortcomings in this regard.
 Project based learning: By enhancing the teaching that assists project based learning will
make the difference. Soft skills should be made one of the most indispensible discipline
and phase to teach about in the syllabus of various educational levels. The teachers
should help the students succeed on day one by including soft skills acquisition and
development different programs. Discuss with them to understand the skills they’ll need
to lean on most in their role and identify the areas where they could use improvement.
Give them a role play situation and pair them with a student mentor who they can lean on
to work on skills gaps.
 Student Centric approach: It is rightly said, “Lack of direction, not lack of time is the
problem”. Help the students in setting up soft skills goals like improving their public
speaking. And give them opportunities to practice and hit those goals.
 Parent, teacher or mentor is a facilitator rather than a guide: All of them have superior
influence on a young person’s aptitude in soft skills. This puts a lot of responsibility in
this regard on to the shoulders of a student’s family and educational institutions.
 English language: Learning soft skills and employment require some medium to bridge
all the gaps of minor and major inappropriateness and to exploit them for the best venture
with updated assets. Since every stream of education and job has been globalised
therefore English language comes forward as the best medium from all aspects
worldwide. English is the medium that imparts global information and knowledge
through numerous means to help in the acquisition of knowledge, traits and skills.

Students are would be employees and if they are made experts in this language, they can
present any of their presentation confidently.
 Self –imposed training: Any kind of training will most likely be unsuccessful if one is not
fully convinced that it will lead to any improvement or that the improvement will be
beneficial. Negatively perceived personal traits could be changed or successfully covered
by undergoing self-imposed training. Inculcation of soft skills and training is not mare
pedagogic steps taken by the trainer; the trainee is equally required to have a sense of
urgency of the determined goal. The students must try to learn accomplishments at
individual level too and for that self imposed training holds the prominent place.
 Team work: “You cannot be the general of your own company”. A class should be
divided into groups and small goal oriented project should be given to work upon. The
best team with effective outcomes must be awarded. These kinds of activities inspire
them to work together and teach them the power of unity
 Part time jobs: Students should go for part time jobs rather than just focus on study. It
will prepare them in advance. They will learn how to appear in proper form when they try
worldwide.
The inherent personality traits give the ability to connect with the world. Those traits can make
difference between stand out student and one who just gets by. Think about the generation in the
complicated world. Let us take the pledge to minimize the serious problems like problem of
depression and stress. “We used to consider academic scores as the first ‘threshold’ a candidate
needed to pass, but we’re now enforcing a more interpersonal hiring practice that allows
candidates to demonstrate their networking, leadership and communication skills…….”,says
Catherine Friday, Education leader of EY Oceania. I think we need to rename these skills. Soft
skills should no longer be secondary, they should be on top. Let’s call them “cap skills”!

Sharanjit Kaur
M.Phil. (English)