2. Social Skills As A Tool For Developing An Effective Personality
• Indira Gopinath

3. Abstract
Good social skills are critical to success in life. Effective social skills
are fundamental to smooth relationships and interactions. All people
need social validation, which means they need others to recognize and
acknowledge their existence. Because it impacts how we think and feel
not only about ourselves, but the community where we want to be
included. This paper deals with the need for social skills, impacts of
social deficits, benefits, a few famous personalities who have achieved
social validation.
Tags: social skills, impacts, benefits, famous personalities

4. Social Skills
• “Nothing matters more than
other people." Ahuvia, 2015.
• Social skill is
any skill facilitating interaction
and communication with others.
With good social skills, it is
easier to make friends, build
strong relationships and get
ahead in career.

5. Some Social Skills
Oprah Winfrey: “The struggle of my life
created empathy - I could relate to pain,
being abandoned, having people not love
me”.
Empathy: the most important 21st century
social skill. Daniel Goleman’s work
demonstrates how empathy fuels intrinsic
motivation and effective problem-solving.
• Friendliness, good communications
skills, outgoing, a good attitude,
agreeableness, emotional stability,
openness to experience, politeness,
assertiveness, not dominating,
feeling calm and at ease, non-angry,
respectful, ...

6. Social Skills Examples
Positive traits
• Confidence
• Caring
• Friendliness
• Compassion
• Supportive
• Active
• Prepared With A Plan
• Humility
• Respect
Negative traits
• Not confident
• Uncaring
• Hostile
• Indifferent
• Non supportive
• Lazy
• Not Prepared
• Domineering
• Rude

7. Need For Social Skills
+
Personal skills and competence.
Be the ‘smartest, boldest’ you, you can be.
To develop emotional intelligence.
• 21st century demands new standards
in social competence.
-
Overcome life hacking behaviours like
laziness, procrastination, stress, anger,
aggression, selfishness, lack of courage,
pessimism, fear, …
• Pick up correct behaviours that reduce
stress and anxiety. Avoid unhelpful
behaviours and beliefs.

8. Maslow’s Theory of Self Actualization

9. Factors To Employee Success:
No. 1 Predictor of Career Success
• The No. 1 Predictor of Career
Success is Open Networks.
• Critical determinant of future
social success.
• People are part of multiple
groups, unique relationships,
experiences, and knowledge that
other people in their groups do
not.

10. Factors To Employee Success
• Increase in average life expectancy 25-30
years. Work-Life span 35-50 years.
• So, have confidence in facing 21st century
technology changing behaviour patterns.

11. Factors To Employee Success
• “Your career success in the work place
of today – independent of technical
expertise – depends on the quality of
your people skills” (Max Messmer, Jr.)
• Achievement motivation and economic
growth.
• Change from being reactive to
proactive.
Make sense out of common
sense.
Positive mental health.
Social support. Social skills is
the ability to get cooperation
from others. Connect. Have a
1000 Mentors.

12. The New Psychology
of Success (2008)
• The Effort Effect
• According to a Stanford psychology
Professor Carol Dweck (2008), you will
reach new heights if you learn to
embrace the occasional tumble.
• Culture can play a large role in shaping
our beliefs.

13. Growth Mindset: Intelligence can be developed

14. According to Stanford
psychologist Carol Dweck,
success in life is all about how
you deal with failure. She
describes the approach to failure
of people with the growth
mindset this way,
• Failure is information—we label it
failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t
work, and I’m a problem solver, so I’ll
try something else.”
• Tests are notoriously poor at measuring
potential.

15. A Positive Attitude Towards Failure
• People who believe personality can
change were more likely than others
to bring up concerns and deal with
problems in a constructive way
(Dweck, 2008).
• A positive attitude towards failure.
“We all face failure. It’s how you
handle it matters” (Ferguson, 2015).
• “Every wrong attempt discarded is
another step forward” – Thomas
Alva Edison.
• “Exams are failing assessments”
(Virgo, 2015).
• “The fire to succeed will come from
things you didn’t get, you didn’t
learn, you didn’t have (Sharma,
2015)

16. Factors To Employee Success
Develop fluid intelligence
Psychologist Cattell suggested two
forms of intelligence. Fluid intelligence
is defined as the ability to solve new
problems, use logic in new situations,
and identify patterns. In contrast,
crystallized intelligence is defined as the
ability to use learned knowledge and
experience.
A non – bias view of talent (Halter,
2015) helps in business growth in
gender intelligent organizations.
Indra Nooyi, Satya Nadella, ...
Person-Job fit.
• 21st century social skills for
global citizenship.

17. Factors To Employee Success
A responsible balance between risk
taking and risk mitigation – the ability
to assess situations smartly and take
correct decisions.
Education for the future: Today’s
readers become tomorrow’s
leaders.
Literacy is a process of continuous
negotiation that is fuelled by social,
economic, and technological changes.
Professional women (STEM) do not go
for underpaid or non-financial jobs
which leads to low pay, undervalues
them, leading to low self-esteem.

18. Impacts of social deficits
• Untreated social skill deficits become societal problems.
• Lack of confidence to change. Pick up unconsciously, unhelpful
behaviours and beliefs.
• Social skills deficits associated with stress generation, depression,
interpersonal rejection, offensive behaviour like poor academic
performance, aggression and anxiety.
• Social incompetence can be more debilitating and detrimental to
success in life than learning problems.

19. The SOFTEN Approach to improving your social skills
• Smile. Additionally, laugh and tell jokes.
People will naturally return the favour.
• Open posture. Welcoming the conversation.
• Forward lean.
• Touch. Appropriate in some cultures.
• Eye contact.
• Nod. Builds positive relationship.

20. Benefits of Social Skills
• The Power of Unconscious Programming. The Power of “YOU”.
• Eg. “I am more than proud to have you all on my team, and as you
know we are directed to face the largest challenge ever. So, how can
you provide exceptional results? How can you lead this team to
victory? Here’s how. By being the smartest, boldest you can be. And if
I don’t recognize you doing that, smack me on the back and get my
attention. Because I want to be sure to reward everyone of you for the
gifts you are about to make to this challenge!

21. Benefits of Social Skills
• Promotes positive attitude and
behaviour.
• Connect with a 1000 Mentors in
your life. Surround yourself with
good people. Undemanding
relationships.
• Social skills are learned behaviours
that allow people to achieve social
reinforcement and avoid social
punishment. Efficiency
optimization.
• Builds resiliency in the face of future
crises or other stressful life events.
• Decision – making: People with high
levels of positive affectivity make
superior decisions than those with
high levels of negative affectivity.
• The art of tact and diplomacy:
capacity of talking their way out of
difficult situations. Disagreement
means a good decision is possible.

22. 4 Behaviours of High Performers
• High performers define the goals
they wish to accomplish, then
fully commit with everything
they have.
• Successful people achieve
because they discover their
passion and uncover their
purpose.
• Learn to recognize others’
emotions and handle
relationships.
• Learn to manage their own
emotions.

23. Narendra Modi: Serve to lead. Reformer, focusing on
cleanliness, safety issues, economics and finance.

24. Positive Thinking
“Dreams are finally nothing but goals or mission in life.”
– Dr. Abdul Kalam

25. Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi
Fortune 500 CEOs

26. • Raghuram Rajan: Governor, RBI.
The “celebrity central banker”, who
came to the limelight for predicting
the 2008 global recession.
• Amitabh Bachchan: International
Icon Of The Year Award.

27. • Dr. K. Radhakrishnan: Mars
Orbiter became first Indian
spacecraft to enter Martian orbit
in a maiden attempt.
• Pope Francis: “Francis effect” One
in four Catholics said they had
increased their charitable giving to
the poor in 2014. Of those, 77%
said it was due in part to the Pope.

28. Barack Obama was criticized for his introvert, aloof personality. Today a
successful leader. He has the natural capacity for thoughtful
communication. Called “Wordsmith”.

29. • Christine Lagarde: Managing
Director, IMF. Help to the poor
and unemployed above all.
• Maria Klawe: Klawe is leading
the change in bringing more
women into science, technology,
and engineering.

30. Kailash Satyarthi: Nobel Peace Prize 2014. ‘Bachpan Bachao Andolan’.
The world still has 168 million child labourers, 58 million children are out-of-
school, and 15 million girls are married off under 15 each year. 5.5 million
children are struck in slavery, as bonded labour or sex slaves or in hundreds of
other inhuman ways.

31. Malala Yousafzai: Nobel Peace Prize 2014. “Girls right to education”.
Injustices perpetrated against children contribute to the spread of
conflicts to future generations.

32. “Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, great minds rise
above them.” – Washington Irving, Writer, Historian, and Diplomat.
• Satya Nadella: Team work • Sundar Pichai: Team spirit

33. • Angela Merkel: Most successful
national leader in the world today.
She is, practically speaking, the
leader of the European Union,
world's largest economy.
• Alan Mullaly: Ford's miracle
worker saved the company without
resorting to bankruptcy or bailouts
by doing what previous leaders had
tried and failed to do: change Ford's
risk-averse, reality-denying culture.

34. • Jack Ma: Alibaba Group.
• Wendy Kopp, CEO and Co-Founder, Teach for
All. Recruited social entrepreneurs in 32
countries to become teachers in underfunded
public schools. Empowering young people who
will carry their first-hand experiences into
careers in many sectors. This alone ensures
enduring influence.

35. • Jeffrey Tobias Halter: President of YWomen, a gender
strategic consulting firm that helps companies create
actionable business plans to help women rise through
the ranks. Engaging men in women’s leadership
issues.

37. The Power Of Gender Parity In Business And Economy
(Projected 2025)

38. 21st Century Hiring
• 21st century hiring is all about
"what you can do, not what you
have done".
• Talent shortage today is very
real. So, develop your social
skills and be a winner.

39. Impossible Is Nothing