Digital Library: Personal Skills

Personal skills are the skills which relate to the approach of peoples’ actions and their manner of expressing. They are related with person’s behaviour and everyday attitudes in different fields of his actions, activities and personal involvements.

Personal skills relate to how you express yourself. You can quickly tell the level of an individual’s personal skills by observing how they interact with others in the workplace and everyday life. A person with deficient of these skills isn’t easy to deal with, and their presence can cause a rift in a team. It is important to mention that it is much easier to work with people with well-developed personal skills and consequently contribute to creating a productive and effective environment.

In short, we can say that personal skills are things we are good at – our strengths, abilities and attributes.

The latter is especially important when the person is involved working in the field of social activities with volunteering. And undoubtedly, in crisis situations, well developed personal skills are the basis for volunteering activities. In this way the are also the basis for acquiring, developing, and consolidating other social skills that are important for crisis situations.

A person with well-developed personal skills:

• Says directly what she thinks or feels
• Is able to listen carefully what you have to say without interruptions
• Treats you honestly, respectfully
• Behaves consistently
• You can rely on her courtesy and professionalism
• Is open to your comments, makes sure to understands
• Works with you to solve the problem
• Is responsible for her actions
• Is flexible and willing to adapt or make changes for the benefits of the team
• Recognizes and confirms your strengths and contribution
• Supports you in your ideas and is willing to contributes to build them

The SoCraTest cluster on personal skills contains four skills: self-awareness, critical thinking, self-motivation, positivity & optimism. Basis for the choice of useful skills Based on the need to understand crisis situations in the performance of voluntary work and as such does not belong to a specific professional approach in crisis management. It basically refers to a useful basis for acquiring soft skills for the general population, which is involved in providing services to voluntary and other organizations in crisis management and on this basis acquires the necessary and useful soft skills.