It was easy to assume that the ongoing coronavirus crisis would trigger fear in the business world, given all the uncertainties surrounding it. But with constraint comes the opportunity for a big reset. A reset in priorities, objectives, and roles requiring a set of particular skills.
In order to stay competitive in the job market, hard work must begin way before being employed, starting from business school. This is why we picked up 5 skills needed to excel in today’s business world.
Flexibility in the Business World
Whether working for a big corporation or on your own as an entrepreneur, being adaptable is not only something you had to go through on a personal level for the past 18 months or so, it’s also about a very niche skill employers are always on the lookout for.
With flexibility in the professional sector comes an extension of other sub-skills that fall under it and are mutually exclusive with the ever-changing nature of workspaces, job descriptions, requirements, and responsibilities, such as the ability to work under pressure, adjusting to new and unexpected deadlines, prioritizing tasks, and merging deliverables with other departments. Without flexibility, expect an additional mess, in particular, if members of the departments are neither on the same page nor cooperating.
EQ and Social skills
From simple interactions, networking, to projecting more business confidence and reading the different employee traits, emotional intelligence and social skills go hand-in-hand in the business world, because despite the remote work that created a certain detachment between individuals, there is still nonetheless a need for genuine human connection which translates in empathy and reading others’ emotions and expectations, especially if you’re filling in a managerial position with tons of decision making along the way. This leads to the next skill that has been highly in demand by recruiters.
Leadership
This skill goes beyond delegating, supervising, and ordering around. Anyone in any position can demonstrate this skill if given the opportunity to shine. The leadership of the future (Deloitte, “Leadership styles of the future” report), revolves around impactful communication, especially during a crisis. Leaders are required to tap into their “flexibility”, previously mentioned, and adapt their leadership style according to each stage of crisis:
Respond, Recover, and Thrive.
And because leadership can be spotted in any employee at any rank, these individuals will stand out as they embrace feedback from subordinates, colleagues, and superiors alike; never taking things personally, and being mature enough to hold themselves accountable, especially when it comes to making decisions that align with the bigger picture of the world, who as we know by now, is constantly and unexpectedly changing.
This is where the pressure comes in, not to freeze this skill, but to open the door to another: creativity.
Business World and Creative Problem Solving
Creativity in a problem-solving process is strongly influenced by the environment in which people operate. However, instead of seeing a dead-end, creative people see it as a hands-on opportunity to turn a problem into an opportunity for innovation by using data, technologies, their human resources, and strategic thinking to offer solutions not only internally to their business, but to their clients and even industry as a whole.
“High-performing organizations have cultures of creativity and risk. They encourage workers to innovate and play.” — Andy Hargreaves
Risk Taking: Seeing the Bigger Picture
Saving the best for last, this is your opportunity to shine by having a multidisciplinary skillset. The business world is made for the risk-takers, never for the faint of heart. Moving forward, to succeed in post-covid times, one must map out a bigger picture and have it align with the international scope of the markets. Such vision can’t be accomplished without taking risks and exploring the various fields of marketing management and strategy, international business, and innovation.
If you fit into this visionary profile, then be sure that by partaking in the Masters in Management at EMLV, MiM (Grande Ecole Programme), you are a step closer to becoming a successful individual always eager and curious to take their career a step further.
This Grande Ecole programme will give you both a practical and a theoretical approach thanks to the various majors you can choose from:
- Corporate Finance
- Audit and Control
- Digital Marketing Strategy
- International Business
- Marketing Innovation and Distribution
The curriculum is constantly updated to adapt to the constantly changing trends in the economy, business, and technology to ensure that students are taught the latest, most up-to-date competencies and content that take into account the job market needs as well as the student’s professional goals.
Discover more about this program and unlock endless development opportunities.