Around the conversation of defining skills, the two areas we hear most about are...

Hard Skills and Soft Skills

In this episode, Michel breaks these two areas down to help gain clarity on what they are,  and how we use both of them.

Hard skills, also referred to as "technical", "functional" or "academic", often refer to WHAT you do. These skills are defined by your program of study and are not transferable to a new profession.

Soft skills, however,  go by many names:  People skills, emotional intelligence, employability skills and many, many more. 

Thus, making these soft skills hard to define and measure, and quite often, hard to learn. Yet these are the skills that are transferable and increase your overall value across a wide range of roles and careers.

As Michel explains in this episode, we have been attempting to define soft skills for over a century.  And while we all know they are important, the challenge we face as leaders, is not just defining these skills, but learning to measure and implement with consistency.

Which is why at UpSkill Community, we are committed to ongoing soft skills training, learning and development.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

There is so much talk around skills. Hard skills, soft skills, personal and interpersonal skills, and yes...Upskill.

Thus, it is very important to clearly define exactly what a skill "is" and what a skill "is not"

In this episode, the first of four new episodes to clearly define and level set skill-learning, Michel provides clarity and shares how to develop skills - a  crucial and important process.

According to LinkedIn, there are over 50,000 professional skills. Since a leader cannot be expected to learn ALL of these skills in one lifetime, it is important to focus on the skills most important for us to be effective leaders.

In Michel's book, UpSkill: Soft Skills and Professional Development Essentials, obtaining a new skill is defined by the 4 D's - Decide, Design, Develop, Demonstrate. Using this process, with a clear investment of time, leaders have the opportunity to acquire new and  important skills.

However, the most important part of skill-learning is our focus and intention. We cannot expect to simply "absorb" new skills just going through the motions of our day. 

To keep up with the ever-changing workplace environment, it is crucial to put intention around development, and have a clear process to learn new skills.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

What is worse:  To be a great leader and assess yourself poorly? 

Or, to be a mediocre leader and assess yourself as “great”?

As leaders, we must have the skill to see and assess ourselves clearly and accurately, so that we may lead most effectively.

In today’s episode, Michel shares the story of an experiment where leaders were asked to assess themselves as leaders. While the results varied, the end result was very few assessed themselves accurately.

Just like looking through a cloudy lens, when we try to “see” ourselves through this blurred vision, we don’t see what’s really there. And as discussed in this episode, it’s better to uncover who you are intentionally, than to have your cover blown unintentionally.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

As leaders, we are tasked with "showing up" with confidence to our stakeholders, employees and colleagues as well as in our personal lives. 

But how do we know what confidence should look like for everyone?

In one word, community.

In this final episode of the three-part series on confidence, Michel and Peter Walfall discuss the importance of having a community to help guide us to our most authentic selves as leaders. 

In a community, fresh ideas around confidence are safely presented to help us grow. As well, Peter and Michel discuss how new streams of members in a community keep us from getting locked in our own echo chambers. New people with fresh ideas, much like fresh water in a pool, keep our perspectives from growing stagnant and allow us a leaders to continuously grow.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

Asking this question, what is the role of confidence for leaders, sometimes is a little "fuzzy" to answer.

In today's episode, Michel and Peter Walfall continue with part two of their conversation on confidence for leaders. Looking at the role confidence plays for leaders, very often we reach for the "off the shelf" strategies to lead with confidence.  

However, as Michel and Peter discuss in this episode, the role of confidence for leaders often requires  looking deeper within ourselves. And as we begin to look deeply at ourselves, with the assistance of supportive community, we can discover how we show up and lead with the most authentic confidence for our teams, employees and all around us.

If you have not done so, please take a moment and listen to Episode 4 - part one of this three-part conversation surrounding confidence with leaders.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

As leaders, we are always searching for the most effective tools to lead with confidence in an ever-changing world.

Today on Upskill Talks, Michel sits down with Peter Walfall, fellow UpSkiller in the UpSkill Community for a 3-part conversation on leading with confidence in this new world.

Peter and Michel begin this series by looking at how many of the strategies that once "rang true" for leaders to show up confidently have fallen apart. 

This dismantling has shaken the foundation of confidence for many leaders. As well, Michel and Peter share how vulnerability is emerging as one of the most important attributes for today's confident leaders.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

As we have all seen, the pandemic and the social issues of the past 18 months have rewritten the rulebook for leaders.  

Now, more than ever, we need one another.

In this episode of Upskill Talks, Michel shares the story of Lucy, who was called out by her employees and felt her confidence shaken. To use her words, she simply felt, "dumb". But with these realizations come growth and renewed confidence, and this confidence is not only in our actions, but how we guide our employees to gain their own confidence.

As told through the lens of Michel's upbringing in Jamaica, it's clear that we simply can't go back to normal. And through community, we can grow as leaders and as fellow humans.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

As leaders, many individuals are counting on you.  Yes, your employees and colleagues, but equally as important, your partner and family.

In this episode, Michel shares the story of Sam and explores how some of us take our "mask" off at home while others put our "mask" on when we get home.  And it was the pandemic that blended these "separate" lives as we had to learn to become whole.

Empathy, for leaders, is such a necessary part of our toolkit. It allows us to get to know our employees better. But as discussed in this episode, the three kinds of empathy allow our employees, as well as our families to know US better.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

In this inaugural episode of Upskill Talks, host Michel Shah shares the most transformative experience of her career that forever changed her professional trajectory.

Yes, as leaders, we are measured by our Results. But when we focus solely on the metrics and the measurements that determine success, we lose sight of the personal Stories that shape the human experience of our employees and team members.

As shared in this first episode of Upskill Talks, when we begin with the Stories (before we focus on the Results), the outcome is a team that strives for greater heights. Plus, we help the building of a caring, more meaningful relationship between us (as leaders) and the people who "show up" for us everyday.

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com

UpSkill Talks is a podcast for leaders. 

Leaders who are forward thinking and want to be on the cutting edge, actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact and lead others. 

Leaders who want the most up to date people skills in their toolkit. 

And it is especially only for leaders who are willing to explore ideas and perspectives outside of your comfort zone and take the risks to go wherever our conversations take us. 

I am your host, Michel Shah, I invite you to join me starting November 15, 2021 for UpSkill Talks - brought to you by McGraw Hill. With every episode, it will be more about the journey and less about a destination, as we skill, reskill and upskill together.  

At UpSkill, we are building a community of UpSkillers, learning and growing together.

Please listen, subscribe and share!

With decades of combined leadership experience, team of coaches, facilitators and subject matter experts can help to UpSkill your organization.

We offer corporate training, coaching, e-learning courses and consulting services for:

• Inclusive Leadership
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Communication
• Soft Skills
• Senior Leadership Training

Email us: [email protected]

Learn more: www.upskillcommunity.com