What is Personal Development?

Personal development is a lifelong process. It is a way for people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in
life and set goals in order to realise and maximise their potential.

This page helps you to identify the skills you need to set life goals which can enhance your employability prospects, raise
your confidence, and lead to a more fulfilling, higher quality life. Plan to make relevant, positive and effective life choices
and decisions for your future to enable personal empowerment

Learning about Personal Development

Personal development skills are the skills you need to enable you to set personal goals and to achieve personal
empowerment.

You can build a strong and effective skill-set through personal development, and these will help you to make relevant
and positive choices and decisions in the future.

Character-Building Skills

Our section on Character-Building Skills focuses heavily on those perhaps old-fashioned terms ‘character’ and ‘virtue’,
and their increasing importance in today’s world

Assertiveness

Developing assertiveness skills is important for self-development. Assertiveness is not about being aggressive or
passive but a tool we use to develop an understanding of ourselves and communicate our beliefs, values and opinions
to others.

Time Management

The way that we manage our time has a direct effect on how we feel.

Our Introduction to Time Management page outlines some of the ways you can improve your effectiveness at getting
things done, so that you achieve more and feel more motivated and self-confident. Prioritise, categorise and organise
your time to maximum benefit.

Our lives are often full of things that waste time or distract us from doing what’s important. Follow our simple tips to
avoid wasting time, and reduce these distractions, leaving more time to achieve your goals.

Stress and Stress Management

Stress is common in modern life. Many of us have demands that we feel we constantly need to balance–work, family,
money, health and so on.

Stress can make you seriously ill, so we hope that you will find our stress pages useful in helping you reduce, manage
and avoid stress in your life.

 What is Stress? – This page is an introduction to stress, and will help you to learn more about what causes stress
and how stress may manifest itself in behaviour.

 Avoiding Stress – By understanding why we get stressed and the triggers for stress, we can potentially avoid or
minimise stressful situations. Discover some ways in which stress can be avoided and some tips on relaxation.

 Stress, Nutrition and Diet – Learn about the relationship between what we eat and how stressed we
feel. Improve your diet, feel better about yourself, enjoy life, gain confidence and reduce stress.

 Stress in the Workplace – Workplace stress is common and responsible for many lost work days. Why do
people get stressed at work, what can be done to alleviate the problem and does your employer have a duty to
minimise workplace stress?

 Tips for Dealing with Stress – Practical and simple ways that you can deal with and help combat stress in your
life.

 Relaxation Techniques - Learn some simple and effective ways to relax.

 Work-Life Balance - Find out how you can maintain a healthy balance between work and leisure time.

Anger, Anger Management and Aggression

We all get angry from time to time. Anger is a natural emotion that can be triggered by stress, frustration, feelings of
wrong-doing and many other factors.
Anger should not be thought of as a negative emotion but rather a natural release - we all handle and manage anger in
different ways.
Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are the skills we use every day when we communicate and interact with other people, both
individually and in groups.

People with strong interpersonal skills are often more successful in both their professional and personal lives.

Interpersonal skills include a wide variety of skills, though many are centred around communication, such as listening,
questioning and understanding body language. They also include the skills and attributes associated with emotional
intelligence, or being able to understand and manage your own and others’ emotions.

What are Interpersonal Skills?

Interpersonal skills are generally considered to include a wide range of skills, such as:

 Communication skills, which in turn covers:

o Verbal Communication – what we say and how we say it;

o Non-Verbal Communication – what we communicate without words, for example through body
language, or tone of voice; and

o Listening Skills – how we interpret both the verbal and non-verbal messages sent by others.

 Emotional intelligence – being able to understand and manage your own and others’ emotions.

 Team-working – being able to work with others in groups and teams, both formal and informal.

 Negotiation, persuasion and influencing skills – working with others to find a mutually agreeable (Win/Win)
outcome. This may be considered a subset of communication, but it is often treated separately.

 Conflict resolution and mediation – working with others to resolve interpersonal conflict and disagreements
in a positive way, which again may be considered a subset of communication.

 Problem solving and decision-making – working with others to identify, define and solve problems, which
includes making decisions about the best course of action.

Leadership Skills

The question of what makes a good leader—in other words, what are leadership skills—is widely debated. It
is clear that the ability to lead effectively relies on a number of key skills, but also that different leaders have
very different characteristics and styles.

There is, in fact, no one right way to lead in all circumstances, and one of the main characteristics of good
leaders is their flexibility and ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Leadership skills are highly sought
after by employers as they involve dealing with people in such a way as to motivate, enthuse and build
respect.

Skills Good Leaders Need

There are a number of broad skill areas that are particularly important for leaders.

These include strategic thinking, planning and delivery, people management, change management,
communication, and persuasion and influencing.

1. Strategic Thinking Skills

Perhaps the most important skill a leader needs—and what really distinguishes leaders from managers—is to
be able to think strategically.

This means, in simple terms, having an idea or vision of where you want to be and working to achieve that.

2. Planning and Delivery Skills

While it is important to be personally organised and motivated as a leader—and see our pages on Time
Management and Self-Motivation for more about these areas—it is perhaps even more important to be able
to plan and deliver for the organisation.

These areas are key management skills, but the best leaders will also be able to turn their hand to these. The
best vision in the world is no good without the plan to turn it into reality.
Alongside strategic thinking, therefore, go organising and action planning, both essential for delivery of your
vision and strategy. Project management and project planning are also helpful skills for both managers and
leaders. Good risk management is also important to help you avoid things going wrong, and manage when
they do.
Good leaders also often have very strong facilitation skills, to manage groups effectively.

Leaders also need to be able to make good decisions in support of their strategy delivery, and solve problems.
With a positive attitude, problems can become opportunities and learning experiences, and a leader can gain
much information from a problem addressed.

3. People Management Skills

Without followers, there are no leaders. Leaders therefore need skills in working with others on a one-to-one
and group basis, and a range of tools in their armoury to deal with a wide range of situations. Many of these
skills are also vital for managers, and you can find out more about these in our page on Management Skills.
In particular, leaders are expected to motivate and encourage their followers, both directly (see our page
on Motivating others) and by Creating a Motivational Environment.

One of the first skills that new leaders need to master is how to delegate. This is a difficult skill for many
people but, done well, delegation can give team members responsibility and a taste of leadership themselves,
and help them to remain motivated. See our page on Delegation Skills for more.

There are further challenges to delegating work within a team, including balancing workloads, and ensuring
that everyone is given opportunities to help them develop. See our page on Overseeing Work for more.

Leaders and managers both need to understand how to build and manage a team. They need to know how to
recruit effectively, and bring people ‘on board’ through induction processes. They also need to understand the
importance of performance management, both on a regular basis, and to manage poor performance.

4. Change Management and Innovation Skills

Change management may seem like an odd companion to people management and communication,
but leadership is often particularly important at times of change.

A leader needs to understand change management in order to lead an organisation through the process. For
example, change management requires the creation and communication of a compelling vision. It also
requires the change to be driven forward firmly, and leadership to make it ‘stick’ if the organisation is not to
revert within a very short period.

5. Communication Skills

While communication skills are important for everyone, leaders and managers perhaps need them even
more. These skills are general interpersonal skills, not specific to leadership, but successful leaders tend to
show high levels of skill when communicating.

Good leaders tend to be extremely good listeners, able to listen actively and elicit information by
good questioning. They are also likely to show high levels of assertiveness, which enables them to make their
point without aggression, but firmly. They know how to build rapport quickly and effectively, to develop
good, strong relationships with others, whether peers or subordinates. These skills come together to help to
build charisma, that quality of ‘brightness’ which makes people want to follow a leader.

Leaders also need to know how to give others their views on personal performance in a way that will be
constructive rather than destructive, and also hear others’ opinions of them. See our page on Giving and
Receiving Feedback for more.

They are usually very good at effective speaking, equally skilled at getting their point across in a formal
presentation or Board meeting, or in an informal meeting or casual corridor conversation. They have also
honed their ability to communicate in difficult situations, usually by practice over time.

6. Persuasion and Influencing Skills

Finally, one particular area of communicating that is especially important for leaders is being able to persuade
and influence others.

Good leaders use a range of tools for this. For more, see our pages on Persuasion and Influencing,
and Developing Persuasion Skills.

Leaders also need tools to help them understand the way that others behave, and create positive
interactions. As a first step, it may be helpful to understand more about emotional intelligence—another vital
quality for leaders to possess—but there are a number of other tools that may also be useful,
including Transactional Analysis, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicators.

6. Persuasion and Influencing Skills

Finally, one particular area of communicating that is especially important for leaders is being able to persuade
and influence others.

Good leaders use a range of tools for this. For more, see our pages on Persuasion and Influencing,
and Developing Persuasion Skills.

Leaders also need tools to help them understand the way that others behave, and create positive
interactions. As a first step, it may be helpful to understand more about emotional intelligence—another vital
quality for leaders to possess—but there are a number of other tools that may also be useful,
including Transactional Analysis, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicators.

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