QUIZ: Which Essential Skills Do You Need to Master?
By Arkansas Next on Friday, October 13, 2023
Find out by testing your default reactions to the following situations. Be honest with yourself in order to reveal the skills you still need to learn.
1. Your preferred role in a group project:
2. Dealing with an uncooperative team member:
3. Test scores came in, and you didn’t do as well as you hoped. What's your next step?
4. Feeling overextended with homework, extracurricular activities, and athletics practice. How do you fix this?
5. Two students in your group project are arguing. What do you do?
RESULTS: What skills should you try to improve?
Mostly A's
Communication and empathy! These two traits are very important for an understanding leader to master. Employees might need more guidance than others or may ask you a lot of questions…you’ll want to master patience and top-notch communication skills so you can perfectly articulate what you expect of them. You are demonstrating empathy by being patient and understanding that different people need different things to be the best version of themselves!
Mostly B's
Time management! Believe it or not, time management is what can set you apart from other managers and leaders in your future career. This can be what sets you apart for promotions! Being on time, staying organized and pacing yourself with projects, assignments and showing up to school on time will help you be a better student and individual simply because you are taking care of yourself, and being accommodating to others.
Mostly C's
Self-awareness and emotional control! Having self-awareness simply means understanding your strengths and weaknesses. This way, you know what to work on and can research how to best utilize what you’re good at naturally. Steal yourself, and open up to constructive criticism and change. Wise and experienced employees become leaders by being self-aware and mastering emotional control.
Mostly D's
Teamwork! Working with others can be hard, especially if you prefer to do things yourself. A strong leader delegates tasks and allows others to work at their own pace and in their own way. Having outside opinions and differing viewpoints can create a strong team and an even stronger company. A manager who allows their team to shine through their own personal touches is a good and experienced leader.
Mostly E's
Problem-solving and adaptability! Solving problems will help you all throughout your life. If you can adapt to changing environments quickly and use your problem-solving skills to figure out the best way to do that! Good leaders are always adapting to what their team best needs and always solving problems to help their team grow. If you master these skills, you’ll not only be a great friend to those around you–but a great leader!
No Matter Your Results...
Here are key skills that everyone should master:
Effective communication: Learn how to clearly articulate the points you’re trying to make; learn to edit and condense your message; learn how your peers need to receive information to retain it and receive it well.
Time management: Master the art of being reliable and on time with assignments; pay attention to what workflow helps you stay on track and not get distracted or procrastinate.
Empathy and emotional control/intelligence: Become mature enough to take constructive feedback meant to help you improve without strong reactions; find ways to support your peers in the workplace or see where they’re coming from when things don’t go as planned
Self-awareness: Have the integrity to own your weaknesses in addition to being proud of your strengths; ask for help to improve; be mindful of how you carry yourself and behave (and how it makes others feel and react)
Adaptability: Change is often hard; come to terms with the fact that things in life often pivot and processes evolve; be positive when change happens; don’t waste time worrying about how it was done before.
Teamwork: Work hard and do great work for the good of the company and team you’re on; employees focused only on themselves stand out for all the wrong reasons.
Problem-solving: More innate to some than others, but practice makes perfect; if you can become a team member known for solving problems your company faces, you’ll rise quickly.
