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The purpose of this book is to take a careful look at how such competencies can be developed. Beginning with the view that if such competencies can be learned, they must first be defined and have standards set for them, it asks with the question, “Can competency standards be designed for soft skills?”
It is argued that the answer is yes. Locating itself in the workplace context (where adults often spend most of their lives) but being relevant to life in general, this book shows how theoretically sound competency standards can be developed for selected soft skills. This is done by adapting a methodology used to specify workplace competency standards. It also notes a number of practical and ideological issues that will need to be considered at implementation.
This book shows how standards for three such skills have been developed and provided with a preliminary workplace validation. The skills selected are related to interpersonal skills and are derived from the framework of emotional intelligence competencies popularised by Goleman (1996, 1998). Specifically, it has developed competency standards for the following:
- • general emotional awareness
- • the awareness of happiness in the workplace
- • the awareness of anger in the work-place