The Importance of Behavioral Skills in Your Career Growth

By Madhukar Govindaraju, Founder and CEO

Gone are the days when traditional skills development training programs or educational qualifications were sufficient to prepare you for workplace success. Today, firms want their employees to excel, not just in their work but also their interpersonal skills, irrespective of the position they hold. Though theoretically, it should be inculcated as a ?lifelong learning? habit, companies often fall short of this objective due to several external and internal factors affecting their executive education system.

The future of work is highly digital, connected, and collaborative. Behavioral skills specialists believe that employees need to focus on developing specific people skill sets to be successful and happy at work.

Let?s take a look at some of the key behavioral skills and their importance in career growth –


Communication is one of the essential skills that can help you succeed in the workplace. You need to be comfortable when it comes to various channels of communication, including ? face-to-face, written, or online. Without honing your communication skills, you may find it difficult to develop your career beyond a certain point. Since it is also a key element to business success, companies have started stressing on their employees to adopt good communication skills in order to foster better client relationships, promote team building, and ensure workplace engagement.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict of ideas and strategies is common in workplaces. But if left unresolved, they can prove to be detrimental to the internal teams and may even affect the company?s output. Resolving conflict is an offshoot of communication skills and can help two or more parties reach a peaceful solution, irrespective of the nature of the disagreement. It is an immensely important skill set to decide the best course of action and defuse a stressful situation.

Time Management

Burnouts and fatigue are quite common amongst employees. The reasons can be many, including long working hours, several projects that need their attention or having several business trips that require frequent travel. This is where time management skills come into effect. It helps you have a positive and productive work-life balance by not only meeting deadlines and beating stress, but also helping you manage your time off from work. It makes you more efficient and improves your performance in the long-run.


Great leaders continuously work to improve themselves. While this is not a skill per se, self-improvement helps to increase self-esteem and opens up new and better opportunities. In the end, people working on self-improvement create a better version of themselves. Reading books, articles, and learning from someone who can aptly guide you are some of the ways to self-improvement. Asking for feedback from your colleagues, managers, trainers, and mentors at the workplace is a good way to become more efficient.


In today?s modern workplace, people from different cultures, with diverse skill sets, and abilities work together. In such an environment, recognizing and understanding the other person?s perspective is a crucial requirement. Everyone needs to have the ability to listen and understand what the other person is trying to communicate, and show compassion when others are facing challenges.

Make Way for Behavioral Skills Via Mentorship

These are some of the essential behavioral skills that every professional needs to nurture. While not all companies can offer the required training to their employees, the best option is to find a mentor who can help you with your career growth.

As opposed to in-house training, mentoring can help you derive benefits from a long-term partnership. Being in the same industry, mentors can be your source of wisdom and can provide their able guidance and necessary advice whenever necessary. Moreover, they can also offer moral support and help you improve on your behavioral skills. Mentors, essentially, are the guiding lights that steadily help mentees chalk their careers.

Looking to connect with a mentor who can help you shape a successful career? Look no further.

NumlyEngage™ Enterprise, the world?s first Enterprise Mentoring Platform, makes it easy to reach out and forge a relationship with the mentor you look up to. Sign up and start connecting with highly knowledgeable and expert mentors of your choice. Gather specific feedback on your skills and improve on those skills through continuous guidance from your mentors. Try it for free today!

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