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Looking to improve your soft skills? The above 6 can be applied to any soft skill you are looking to improve:

Feedback - asking for feedback is vital, understanding how we need to improve and how we are doing on the road to improvement is a great first step. You can seek feedback from lots of people from your manager, peers, family, friends or loved ones. Just be sure to take criticism as its intended, to help you and not as a means to get at you.

Communicate - feedback is great as it allows us to know where we need to improve and how thats coming along, but we will need to communicate what we are looking to improve to others and why. Once this improvement want is out there and well communicated others can help you along your journey.

Seek Opportunities - constantly look for opportunities which will help you to flex your new skill, this gives you an idea if you are missing or lacking anything, or where you are excelling. Also, practice makes perfect, the more opportunities which expose you to this new skill the better.

Don't Be Afraid - it's easy to hide in the shadows and go about your life, its a lot harder to want to try something new, to want to improve and move forward, so congrats for coming to this conclusion, but now you have to grab the bull by the horns, don't be afraid, there will be lots of times along this journey when you will want to simple hide under the covers, the task at hand is outside your comfort zone, but forge ahead, be brave!

Increase Knowledge - sometimes we may have to set aside some time in order to learn something, courses are our friend, they are a great starting place, sometimes there is such a wealth of information it can be hard to know where to start, courses consolidate and order information in an easy to digest way.

Observe - Is there anyone around you with the soft skill you are learning to which you are in awe of? Observe them, observe how they behave, the language they use, their body language, the ins, outs, who's and whys, observe it all, and don't stop until you are satisfied with how you are coming along with your new skill. No one is suggesting copying their style, but understanding how this skill looks is a great way to improve. You can observe peers, media persons, anyone!

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Career Development Cycle:

Assess - Assess where you currently are, what skills you have, what qualifications/training courses you hold/attended. How can you use your current skills etc to development your career. Do you want to stay within the same industry. Really dig deep when assessing.

Plan - Plan how you will get to where you want to be and in what time frame. Having a time limit and a plan of action will really focus your efforts.

Identify - Now you know what skills, qualifications you have and where you want your career to go, you need to identify what skills you are missing, what education you need to give yourself, what networking opportunities there are, the people who can mentor/help you, and of course where you will obtain these new skills/qualifications. Really put effort into researching this, be armed with the know that will help you progress your career.

Develop - Now is the time to develop those new skills, networks, mentors, qualifications etc. Put your efforts into working hard here, be aware that effort will be required in order to achieve what you would like to achieve. Read, educate and develop.

Apply - Its great putting the effort in in order to obtain all relevant skills etc but now you need to apply this new found knowledge. Speak up if you have the answer, show your boss/industry what you can do.

Review - You will need to check in with your efforts every now and again, how is your hard work paying off? Is it having the desired effect? If not why? Do you need to change job in order to be viewed in this new light you have created for yourself? Do you need to speak to your employer to understand opportunities within your current company. Have you fully developed your skills yet, do you need further education, do you truly understand the information you have acquired. Do you need time to add experience to these newly gained skills etc.

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4 Skills to master if you want to become a great manager!