essay on development of skills

Essay on Importance of Skill Development

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Skill Development in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Skill Development

Introduction.

Skill development is a crucial part of our lives. It helps us perform tasks more efficiently and opens up new opportunities.

Why is Skill Development Important?

Skills are the key to unlocking a better future. They enhance our abilities, making us more competent and confident.

Benefits of Skill Development

Developing skills can lead to better jobs and higher income. It also boosts our self-esteem and makes us more independent.

Investing time in skill development is a smart choice. It not only improves our lives but also contributes to society’s progress.

250 Words Essay on Importance of Skill Development

Skill development is a fundamental aspect of human growth and societal advancement. It equips individuals with the capabilities to perform tasks effectively, fostering personal improvement and contributing to economic development.

The Role of Skill Development in Personal Growth

Skill development plays a pivotal role in personal growth. It enhances an individual’s ability to adapt to changes, solve complex problems, and make informed decisions. Skills such as critical thinking, communication, and leadership are not only important in the professional sphere but also in navigating everyday life.

Economic Implications of Skill Development

From an economic perspective, skill development is crucial for a nation’s growth and prosperity. A skilled workforce can drive innovation, productivity, and competitiveness, leading to economic diversification and resilience.

Preparing for the Future

In the face of rapid technological advancements, skill development is more important than ever. It prepares individuals for the future, enabling them to keep up with evolving job requirements and technological changes.

In conclusion, skill development is a vital tool for personal growth, economic development, and future preparedness. It is a lifelong process that requires continuous learning and adaptation. The importance of skill development cannot be overstated as it is the foundation for a prosperous and sustainable future.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Skill Development

In the modern age, the significance of skill development cannot be overstated. Skill development refers to the enhancement of one’s abilities and competencies to perform more effectively and efficiently in their chosen field. It is a continuous process that fosters growth, productivity, and self-improvement.

The Dynamics of Skill Development

Skill development is not confined to the acquisition of technical or vocational skills. It also encompasses soft skills like communication, leadership, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence, which are increasingly being recognized as equally important. These skills complement technical skills and are often the differentiating factor in the job market.

Relevance in the Job Market

In the rapidly evolving job market, employers are not just looking for theoretical knowledge; they are seeking individuals who can apply their knowledge practically. They value employees who can adapt to the changing dynamics of the workplace, problem-solve, and work well in teams. Skill development, therefore, enhances employability and job readiness.

Impact on Personal Growth

Skill development is not just about professional growth; it has a profound impact on personal growth as well. It promotes self-confidence, resilience, and adaptability. It fosters a growth mindset, encouraging individuals to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, and see effort as a path to mastery.

Role in Economic Development

On a broader scale, skill development plays a crucial role in a country’s economic development. A skilled workforce is more productive and innovative, contributing to increased economic output. Countries that prioritize skill development often have higher employment rates and better economic growth.

Challenges and Future Prospects

Despite its importance, there are challenges in skill development. The fast-paced technological advancements often outpace the development of skills, creating a skills gap. Additionally, access to quality skill development opportunities is not equitable.

However, the future prospects of skill development are promising. With the advent of online learning platforms, access to skill development opportunities is expanding. Furthermore, there is growing recognition of the importance of lifelong learning and continuous skill development.

In conclusion, skill development is a critical element in personal, professional, and economic growth. It is the key to staying relevant in the changing job market and achieving success. Therefore, individuals, institutions, and governments should prioritize and invest in skill development. It is a journey of continuous learning and improvement that leads to growth, adaptability, and success in the modern world.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Youth Development
• Essay on Slum Area Development
• Essay on Rural Development

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Skills and Workforce Development

When done right, skills development can reduce un- and underemployment, increase productivity, and improve standards of living. Investing in upskilling or reskilling people for jobs of the future makes economic sense.

Skills development is at the center of changes happening in education and labor markets amid the global mega trends , such as automation, action against climate change, the digitalization of products and services, and a shrinking labor force, which are changing the nature of work and skills demands. Consequently, skills and workforce development systems must proactively adapt to fast transformations posed by automation, climate action, digitalization, and the evolving labor markets.

These evolving trends will redefine the paradigms of education and workforce development systems globally. In the dynamic landscape of the modern global labor market, education and workforce development systems must become more personalized, accessible (allowing for remote and hybrid learning), and continuous along throughout workers’ careers– placing “ skills development” at the heart of these global transitions . Moreover, skills systems globally (and notably in LMICs) will need to adapt to the fact that many workers will engage in freelancing/informal jobs or self-employment that need to become more profitable, productive, and conducive for economic growth.

To succeed in the 21st century labor market, one needs a comprehensive skill set composed of: 

• Foundational and higher order skills , which are cognitive skills that encompass the ability to understand complex ideas, adapt effectively to the environment, learn from experience, and reason. Foundational literacy and numeracy as well as problem-solving, communication and informational analysis are cognitive skills. 
• Socio-emotional skills , which describe the ability to manage relationships, emotions, and attitudes. These skills include being able to navigate interpersonal and social situations effectively, as well as leadership, teamwork, self-control, and grit.
• Specialized skills , which refer to the acquired knowledge, expertise, and interactions needed to perform a specific task, including the mastery of required materials, tools, or technologies. Specialized technical and cognitive skills as well as entrepreneurship skills are included in this category. 
• Digital skills , which are cross-cutting and draw on all of the above skills, describe the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate, and create information safely and appropriately.

Skills are a cornerstone for the green-digital transition . The development of skills can contribute to structural transformation and economic growth by enhancing employability and labor productivity and helping countries to become more competitive.

Yet, skills gaps are a main constraint , especially in LMICs, to achieve jobs rich economic growth for the digital and green transition. In this regard, most countries continue to struggle in delivering on the promise of skills development:

• There are huge gaps in basic literacy and numeracy of working-age populations, as 750 million people aged 15+ (or 18 percent of the global population) report being unable to read and write, with estimates being nearly twice as large if literacy is measured through direct assessments. Large-scale international assessments of adult skills generally point to skills mismatches as well as large variation in the returns to education across fields of study, institutions, and population groups.
• Megatrends such as automation, action against climate change, the digitalization of products and services, and a shrinking and aging labor force, will transform over 1.1 billion jobs in the next decade .
• About 450 million youth (7 out of 10) are economically disengaged, due to lack of adequate skills to succeed in the labor market.
• Over 2.1 billion adults need remedial education for basic literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills.
• About 23 percent of firms cite workforce skills as a significant constraint to their operations. In some African and Latin American countries, this share rises to 40–60 percent.
• Most African and most South Asian countries do not have data on workforce skills.
• The global economy could gain an estimated US$6.5 trillion in the next seven years by closing workers' skills gaps, representing 5-6 percent of their GDP. Nonetheless, most countries invest less than 0.5 percent of the global gross domestic product in adult lifelong learning.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the pre-crisis vision of equitable, relevant, and quality skills development into sharper relief, adding unforeseen urgency to the calls for reform and highlighting the huge costs of inaction. As a result of the pandemic, 220 million post-secondary students (est.) dropped out of school or lost training opportunities.

The key issues countries need to tackle for skills development are: 

• Access and completion . Across the world, investments in education and skills development—from preschool through post-secondary education to vocational training—have high returns. The wage penalty for low literacy is nine percentage points in Colombia, Georgia and Ukraine, and 19 percentage points in Ghana. And the opposite is also true: in Brazil, graduates of vocational programs earn wages about 10 percent higher than those with a general secondary school education. Still, provision of equitable access is a challenge in many low-income and middle-income countries.
• Adaptability : The rapid pace of technological advancements and evolving labor markets can make technical and specialized skills quickly outdated. On the contrary, transversal skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability, will become more transferable and resilient to changes in the job market. Evidence shows that post-secondary graduates who possess adequate occupation-specific technical skills but lack strong foundational and transversal skills, often face challenges in adapting to work-related changes.
• Quality . Many young people attend schools without acquiring basic literacy skills, leaving them unable to compete in the job market. More than 80 percent of the entire working age population in Ghana and more than 60 percent in Kenya cannot infer simple information from relatively easy texts. For those who access technical and vocational training at secondary and post-secondary levels, returns can vary substantially by specialization and institution. In particular, technical and vocational training (TVET) systems in many countries face challenges related to quality assurance, resulting in perceptions of the vocational track being a second-best option compared to general secondary or tertiary education.
• Relevance. Technical and vocational education and training —which can last anywhere from six months to three years— can give young people, especially women, the skills to compete for better paying jobs. Nevertheless, more needs to be done in terms of engaging local employers to ensure that the curriculum and delivery of these programs responds to labor market needs.
• Efficiency. Challenges related to governance, financing, and quality assurance also impact the efficiency of skills development programs. The resulting unnecessarily high costs can limit opportunities for disadvantaged youth and adults to access these programs. The good news is that the evidence on what works and what does not in skills development, and for whom, is growing. At the World Bank Group (WBG), we support governments around the world in collecting data and designing, implementing, and learning from reforms and programs aimed at addressing the most fundamental challenges of skills development.  

To connect with our Skills community of 2100+ people interested in the field:

• Subscribe to the Skills4Dev Knowledge Digest ,  a newsletter that curates recent reports, papers, literature reviews, and blogs on the topic of skills and workforce development. Past issues are listed to the right under Resources.
• Sign up to receive event invitations to webinars on different Skills-related topics.

Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024

The World Bank (WB) is working with countries and multilateral development partners to ensure that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities, while also supporting employers to locate the skills they need. It provides financial and analytical assistance to governments in a wide range of areas, from system and institutional development to more focused training programs. The WB is also engaged in program and policy research and analysis to improve skills interventions and measurement. 

At present, the World Bank is developing a set of global public goods:

• ActiVaR: the WB supports country teams in designing, implementing, and evaluating training using XR technologies for skills and workforce development. With support from the Government of Korea, with a grant from the Korea World Bank Partnership Facility , the WB launched the ActiVaR Program in Ecuador. ActiVaR is developing an XR training program to train young fishermen in the Caribbean to develop their blue economy productively and sustainably with top-of-the-art fishing and navigation technology. ActiVaR also promotes using virtual campuses to create more engaging hybrid learning experiences in the metaverse. The ActiVaR program has the potential to scale up globally. See more in Results .
• Digital Skills for Africa (DS4A): Set of tools to assess the demand and supply for digital skills, with a focus on Agrotech, post-secondary students, teachers, and healthcare workers. To assess the supply of digital skills, tools include not only assessments on digital skills, but also assessments on literacy and numeracy, and socio-emotional skills. On the other hand, the team is developing a set of data collection tools to assess the demand of digital skills in different sub-sectors of the economy, notably wage employment, small firms and informal workers, and agricultural workers.
• ETRI-VET: Adaptation of the EdTech Readiness Index –a WB tool that collects and reports information on institutions’ and systems’ readiness to use Edtech and conduct Hybrid for instruction– to assess the readiness of formal TVET and higher education institutions to skills and reskill youth in a time of digital transformation.
• TEACH-VET: Class observation instruments and pedagogical support for VET systems. These tools are intended to be used for formal TVET institutions and designed to help countries collect data on teaching and training practices to improve the quality of TVET systems.

To better understand skills development challenges and prioritize solutions, the WB also developed other effective tools:

• The  Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) program : it is a simple conceptual framework to help policymakers, analysts, and researchers think through the lifecycle approach to skills development (cognitive, socioemotional, and job-relevant skills) and to design programs that enhance productivity and promote economic growth.  The program uses household-based and employer-based surveys to facilitate collection of policy-relevant data to enable a better understanding of skill requirements in the labor market. 
• The Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) Workforce Development program  helps countries strengthen their workforce development systems. The SABER Workforce Development (WfD) Policy Intent tool serves to benchmark country’s policies and institutions that affect the supply of and demand for skills, focusing on three functional dimensions: (a) strategy; (b) system oversight; and (c) service delivery.
• The   Training Assessment Project (TAP) is a survey tool that builds upon the SABER-WfD conceptual framework to assess and compare the readiness of training systems and institutions to prepare workers to find meaningful and relevant employment.

Recognizing the importance of skills in the global economy, the World Bank (WB) supports skills development through financing, policy advice, technical support, and partnership activities at the country, regional, and global levels. The World Bank is the most significant external financier of tertiary education and skills, with a close to $7 billion active lending portfolio invested in over 50 developing countries.

Some recent results include the following:

• Virtual and XR Laboratories: With support from the Government of Korea, with a grant from the Korea World Bank Partnership Facility , the WB launched the ActiVaR Program in Ecuador to support country teams in designing, implementing, and evaluating training using XR technologies for skills and workforce development. ActiVaR has helped six technical universities in Latin America develop virtual laboratories for workforce development, benefiting over 600 students annually. ActiVaR supported the creation of two new immersive training programs in auto-mechanics and industrial risk prevention . ActiVaR is developing an XR training program to train young fishermen in the Caribbean to develop their blue economy productively and sustainably with top-of-the-art fishing and navigation technology. ActiVaR also promotes using virtual campuses to create more engaging hybrid learning experiences in the metaverse. The ActiVaR program has the potential to scale up globally. Available evaluation results of the ActiVaR program indicate that immersive training can contribute to student learning by fostering student engagement and motivation and reducing training risks . Moreover, the team has recently published a short guide to inform decision-makers of the potential of using virtual and XR laboratories to enhance the learning experience of students participating in workforce development program.
• Studies and activities on digital skills : As part of the Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) Initiative , the WB has developed a set of resources to support the digital transformation strategy for Africa prepared by the African Union (AU) . Publications include two methodological guidebooks to help countries in Africa prepare a Digital Skills Country Action Plan for higher education and technical vocational education (TVET). Other initiatives include the study on “ Digital Skills in Sub-Saharan Africa. Case Study: Spotlight on Ghana ”, from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

In 2016-2020, the WB committed around 2 billion dollars to support this agenda. Some examples include: 

• STEP Skills Measurement Program : The WBG has supported implementation of household- and employer skills surveys in 17 countries, including  Albania ,  Armenia ,  Azerbaijan , Bosnia and Herzegovina,  Colombia ,  Georgia ,  Ghana , Kenya,  Kosovo ,  Lao PDR , Macedonia,  Philippines , Serbia,  Sri Lanka ,  Ukraine ,  Vietnam  and the  Yunnan Province in China .    
• SABER-Workforce Development (WfD) tools :  SABER-WfD  Policy Intent tool has been implemented in more than 25 countries around the world. The  Training Assessment Project  has been implemented in Albania, Kenya, and  Moldova , and is currently being implemented in several countries in and Europe and Central Asia.
• Dominican Republic:  In the Dominican Republic, the WBG and the Inter-American Development Bank successfully implemented a  Youth Training and Employment Program  that provided vocational and life skills training and on-the-job internships to poor, at-risk youth. An  impact evaluation of the program  showed that graduates, particularly women, were more likely to have a formal job and earn a higher income. Teenage pregnancy rates were also lower among participants. More than 38,000 at-risk youth, half of them women, benefited from the program, which was awarded Best Practices in Youth Policies and Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean by the WBG and the United Nations Development Program.
• Kenya : In Kenya, where youth unemployment is high, the  Youth Employment and Opportunities Project  is helping an estimated 280,000 young Kenyans develop in-demand skills and expand their opportunities. The project includes results-based contracts conditional on youth placement in internship and then employment, to encourage engagement of training providers with private sector employers. The project also supports self-employment by financing and training micro-enterprises as well as young firms with high growth potential, improves access to labor market information, and strengthens youth policy development.
• Afghanistan : The WB supported Afghanistan’s TVET Authority in the development of an Alternative Learning Plan to ensure its 60,000 students can stay connected to the TVET system during the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan, supported under the  Second Afghanistan Skills Development Project , adapted many of the global good practices to the Afghan context – emphasizing simplicity for quick roll out, localized solutions to account for realities on the ground, and provision through multiple modalities to reach and meet the needs of heterogeneous, hard-to-reach student groups.
• Bangladesh : The $190 million  Skills and Training Enhancement Project  for Bangladesh supported selected public and private training institutions to improve training quality and employability of more than 700,000 trainees, with special considerations for learners from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Importantly, the project achieved almost universal program completion, doubling it from the initial 50%, boosted female enrollment from 5% to 32%, and raised the pass rates of disadvantaged students for project-sponsored diploma programs from 55% to 92.5%. 
• Liberia : The  Youth Opportunities Project  helps empower poor and vulnerable youth to improve their income-generating potential. Over 10,000 youth, half of whom are women, have so far received training in entrepreneurship and life skills (such as socioemotional skills, health and hygiene, and money management), improved agriculture techniques, as well as labor subsidies to engage in communal farming. The beneficiaries are mostly located in hard-to-reach rural parts of the country. This support has allowed these youth to have productive employment, engage in other income-generating activities, and contribute to the development of their communities.
• East Africa : The $293 million  Skills for Transformation and Regional Integration Project (EASTRIP)  project aims to increase the access and improve the quality of TVET programs in selected Regional Flagship TVET Institutes in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, and to support regional integration in East Africa. Overall, the project aims to benefit close to 60,000 students, with female students making up at least 30 percent of the enrollment. More than 300 staff will benefit from industrial attachment programs and over 200 staff will benefit from foreign exchange program.  

The TES program draws on the proven in-country experience, evidence, and knowledge of World Bank Formal Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Youth and Adult Learning , and Higher Education to identify, innovate, and mitigate global skills and learning crises. TES program activities fall under two components: global public goods to develop analytical and diagnostics tools that help address gaps and reform opportunities of TES-related systems and institutions (World Bank-executed); and targeted country support to design, implement, and evaluate TES-related policies and programs (World Bank- or Recipient-executed). The activities financed will be guided by five cross-cutting themes ( TES Themes ): (1) Advancing 21st Century Skills and Employability; (2) Promoting Research, Innovation, and Adaptation; (3) Prioritizing Equity and Inclusion; (4) Ensuring Strong Institutions; and (5) Leveraging Transformative Technologies (EdTech).

The WB continues to foster global partnerships to improve skills development around the world. Some recent examples include:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank partnered with the  International Labour Organization  (ILO) and  UNESCO  on understanding the responses of TVET providers, policymakers, and social partners as well as enterprises and sharing lessons learned. Building on this effort, the three organizations are currently engaged in an inter-agency initiative to gather evidence on how to build better TVET systems .

The World Bank also engages with the  WorldSkills  organization, which works to raise the profile and recognition of skilled people, and show how important skills are in achieving economic growth and personal success.

Given the importance of measuring knowledge and skills, the World Bank is partnering with  UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) ,  UNICEF and UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited   Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ,  International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) , and  UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL)  to explore how learning can be measured through the lifecycle by integrating short modules into multi-topic household surveys. This is also building on the history of collaboration between the World Bank and OECD on aligning the literacy measures of the  STEP Skills Measurement Program  to those of OECD  Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) . 

Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE)  is a multi-stakeholder global program housed in the Jobs Group of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice of the World Bank. It focuses on curating and learning from new innovations and “solutions” in the design of youth employment programs, with a focus on technology, gender and private sector. S4YE’s partner network includes over 40 private companies (S4YE Private Sector Advisory Council), a network of 44 high-potential and innovative youth employment projects (S4YE Impact Portfolio), a group of 17 talented and enterprising global youth (S4YE Youth Advisory Group) that provide youth voice on the design of youth employment programs of S4YE and the World Bank; and a network of 150 World Bank youth employment projects in 69 countries, led by different Global Practices.

Social Protection

Program:   Tertiary Education & Skills (TES)

Story: Shaping the skills and jobs of youth in Mozambique: Technical and vocational training

Publication: Fostering Foundational Skills in Thailand: From a Skills Crisis to a Learning Society

Portfolio: What is the World Bank doing on youth employment?

Story:  In Ecuador, Artificial Intelligence Makes Learning Math Easier

Publication:  Building Better Formal TVET Systems: Principles and Practice in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Story:  Skills development in the time of COVID-19: Taking stock of the initial responses in technical and vocational education and training

Report:  TVET systems’ response to COVID-19: Challenges and opportunities

Report:  The skills balancing act in Sub-Saharan Africa: Investing in skills for productivity, inclusivity, and adaptability

Brief:  Partnering for Skills Development in East Asia and athe Pacific

Skills4Dev Knowledge Digests

March 2024 | Information Interventions

December 2023 | Digital Skills

October 2023 | VET Teachers

September 2023 | Formal TVET

Special Edition | Knowledge Pack: Virtual and XR Labs for Workforce Development

June 2023 | Foundational Skills

May 2023 | Socioemotional Skills

April 2023 | Global Healthcare Workers

March 2023 | Career Guidance

February 2023 | EdTech for TVET

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Ecuador: Platform for academic remediation with artificial intelligence

ActiVar: Programa Piloto de Educación Técnica Virtual Inmersiva

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Senior Economist and a co-Global Lead for Skills

co-Global Lead for Labor and Skills and member of the SPJ Global Unit

co-Global Lead for Labor and Skills, and member of the Jobs Group

Additional Resources

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Essays About Development: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Would you like to develop your writing skills? Our essays about development plus enriching prompts can help with this goal. 

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “constant development is the law of life.” Hence, the best way to succeed in life is to conform to this law. Once we do, we embrace the vast opportunities and surprises in the never-ending development cycle. Development, whether within ourselves, in a certain field, or the greater world we live in, requires allocating various resources in the form of time, action, and even financial capital. 

5 Essay Examples

1. why intersectional feminism matters for development by aviva stein, 2. how video games are made: the game development process by nadia stefyn, 3. why industrial development matters now more than ever before by li yong, 4. bangladesh really is a climate success story by joyashree roy, 5. what role does culture play in development by augusto lopez-claros, 1. my personal development goals, 2. importance of socialization in childhood development, 3. effects of the digital age on intellectual development, 4. economic growth vs. economic development, 5. united nations’ sustainable development goals, 6. urban development, 7. keeping pace with technological development, 8. winning strategies for career development, 9. challenges and perks of a business development manager, 10. education in development.

“Using an intersectional feminist lens to dig deeper into the factors that affect and hinder efforts for equality also allows us as development professionals to design programs, interventions, and support systems that aim to dismantle systems of inequality.”

This essay looks into intersectional feminism and the importance of inclusion. “Intersectional” means recognizing how different people live different experiences. Integrating an intersectional lens in feminist development work enables experts to design and implement programs that address inequality effectively. You might also be interested in these essays about bad habits .

“Much like a production line, the game development pipeline helps organize the flow of work so that everyone knows what they need to deliver and when. The pipeline also helps manage the game development timeline and budget, reducing inefficiencies and bottlenecks.”

This essay walks readers through the video game development process while also introducing the different critical players of the ecosystem. Overall, the piece provides budding game developers with a comprehensive resource on the basics of the industry. 

“Economists of the 20th century noted that a thriving industrial sector was crucial to the development of a modern economy, and in 2010, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang observed that development without industrialization is like Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.”

Creating a narrative out of data, this essay underscores the need to push for industrialization to further economies’ development. It sheds light on the myriad benefits of manufacturing on social development but also confronts the environmental challenges of the sector. 

Looking for more? Check out these essays about empathy and essays about gratitude .

“In the 50 years since the Bhola cyclone, the nation has carved out a path to development thanks to natural gas. Turning away from that path precipitously would strand the nation’s fossil-fuel assets and undermine its hard-won sovereignty and development gains.”

The essay demonstrates the determination of Bangladesh to bounce back from one of the deadliest cyclones in history. Now the fastest-growing economy in South Asia, Bangladesh marks a unique development journey that runs against the popular belief of patterning development strategies after those of more developed countries in the West. You might also like these essays about your mom .

“Development is not only about reducing poverty and expanding opportunities against the background of rising incomes. It is also in a very fundamental way about adopting a set of values that are compatible with humanity’s moral development.”

Integrating culture in discussions about development has been a longstanding challenge. But this essay points out that we might have been misled to categorize some development factors as cultural and, as a result, missed out on the proper way to resolve problems at their roots.

10 Unique Writing Prompts On Essays About Development

Whether it be acquiring a second language or graduating college with flying colors, use this essay to discuss your personal development goals and proudly share your progress in putting them into action. And then, write a commitment to keep sight of your personal development goals and what you think you should do more to achieve them in the most efficient way you can.

Socialization helps kids learn how to take turns and manage conflicts that arise from their play and interactions with other kids. Look for the latest research studies that show how the development of social skills relates to a child’s overall physical, intellectual, and emotional development.

Then, list the challenges in helping kids socialize more, given how gadgets are becoming a kid’s best friend for entertainment. Finally, include solutions and consider how society can encourage kids to have positive socialization experiences.

Digital technologies have certainly enabled wide-scale access to information and data that can expand our horizons. However, they also discourage the exercise of cognitive and analytical skills because the information is served on a silver platter. 

For this writing prompt, list the pros and cons of digital technologies in improving thinking skills and take the time to assess how each affects our intellectual development, including relevant studies to support your arguments. 

In this essay, aim to find out whether economic growth and economic development are independent or inextricably linked, such that economic development is not possible without economic growth and vice versa. 

For this, you can turn to the innovative insights of economists Simon Kuznets and Joseph Schumpeter. The creation of the Human Development Index is also worth delving into as it is one of the most ambitious metrics that emerged to measure the economy beyond the national income accounting framework . 

The United Nations has 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015 and targeted to be attained by 2030 to end global poverty while addressing issues such as inequality and climate change. 

In your essay, explain these goals, their origins, and their relevance to today’s challenges. Then find out whether it is on track through the latest SDG report . You can also pick just one SDG close to your personal and get updates on the world’s progress in realizing this goal. Dive into politics in this essay and determine if the UN is on track and adhering to its promises.

True urban development can happen only if security, sanitation, and climate resilience are part of the equation. In this essay, outline the challenges of balancing rapid urbanization with the need to provide people with a decent environment for living. 

Expound on the importance of urban development in reducing poverty. Finally, underscores the enormous role city governments have in steering urban development through a human-centric approach. 

We hear about incredible technological advancements every day, but there has been little development in the regulatory sphere. Elaborate on policy and lawmakers’ challenges in coping with nimble tech companies. 

Some primary challenges include the extraordinary complexity of technologies and the long period it takes to pass a law. In your writing, offer insights into how the government and private sector can join hands and balance strict regulations and self-regulation. 

Career development is the journey of finding your place in the professional world. Flesh out the importance of having a career development game plan and how to implement them. Then take a glimpse at the sea shift in career development amid our present VUCA world. Specifically, analyze how younger professionals are carving out their careers and how companies design professional development plans within a VUCA environment. 

With the fierce competition in today’s markets, how should business development managers think and act to drive their company’s sales growth? Strive to answer this by researching business journals and news articles to discover today’s most pressing challenges business development managers face. But also look on the bright side to flesh out the job’s pros, such as gaining new experiences and expanding your connections. 

This writing prompt highlights the critical role of schools in a child’s overall development and what teaching techniques are proven to be most effective in training a child. To expand your essay, add COVID-19’s long-term debilitating impact on human capital development and how this translates to economic losses. Then, write about the lessons teachers and parents can learn from the pandemic to arrest future global disruptions from affecting the accessibility, delivery, and quality of education.

Tip: When editing for grammar, we also recommend improving the readability score of a piece before publishing or submitting it. If you’d like more help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Personal Development: 9 Skills, Tips, and Examples

Why personal development is so important and how to improve yourself..

Posted June 7, 2020 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

I am obsessed with personal development because it's helped me completely change my life. Only 10 years ago, I had no connections, no money, and worked a minimum wage retail job. Now, I have a Ph.D. from Berkeley, am the author of a book on how to generate happiness in the technology age , and have created a variety of well-being-boosting programs . And it's all because I worked on developing myself. So how do you make personal development work for you?

Personal development can include any skill that you build to improve yourself—your emotions, thoughts, or behaviors. It doesn't really matter which skills you want to improve; the key to personal development is taking the right steps—steps that help ensure that you reach whatever goal you are pursuing.

Learn more from the video below:

What are the most important personal development skills? It really depends on what you're trying to achieve. But here are 9 that I have found to be important to successful personal development.

1. Start by figuring out which personal development skills you need to build. The first step in any personal development strategy is to figure out how to best use your time. It makes little sense to learn how to code if you don't plan to be a coder or to bench press 400 pounds if you don't plan to be a weight lifter. These can be hobbies, but personal development is more about building skills to reach your personal goals . So it's good to take some time to self-reflect. (If well-being is a goal of yours, take this well-being quiz to see which skills you need to build.)

2. Develop entrepreneurial thinking. Everyone can benefit from learning how to think like an entrepreneur, regardless of whether or not you are one. Why? Because entrepreneurs are innovative, good at planning for all possible outcomes, and skilled at getting others to buy into their vision or dream. And perhaps more importantly for personal development, they tend to be adaptable to all sorts of situations.

By developing entrepreneurial thinking, you better adapt to whatever your circumstances are so you can more easily achieve your goals, whether those goals are to start a business that makes a positive impact in the world , to set yourself up for an early retirement , or climb Mount Everest.

3. Develop a growth mindset . If we have a “fixed mindset,” we may shy away from challenges that could help us grow. But this can be problematic because our fear of making mistakes can lead us to avoid challenges and new experiences—experiences which would help us grow, improve ourselves in important ways, and create the life we desire.

If we have a “ growth mindset ” we seek out challenges because we value learning and growth more than we value feeling smart or knowing what we’re doing. That's why those with a growth mindset often build new skills more easily: They believe they can and so they really work at it.

4. Develop your self-soothing mechanism. High levels of stress are not only bad for our health and well-being, they can prevent us from effectively pursuing and achieving our self-development goals. By learning effective, long-lasting relaxation techniques , your body and mind will be more equipped to handle the inevitable challenges that arise when you're trying to develop yourself.

5. Develop resilience . Resilience is that super-important skill that helps you bounce back quickly after being knocked down. This is one of the most important skills for success because none of us will achieve anything if we don't keep trying when we fail. We can build resilience by improving skills like emotion-regulation , mindfulness , and positivity.

6. Develop your value compass. It's not always easy to live by our core values . But when we go through life without following our personal values, we can easily get lost. We may suddenly "wake up" and realize that we are not who we want to be or where we want to be. This is why it's so important to stay in alignment with our personal values.

What are your values? Perhaps: kindness, curiosity, creativity , hard work, or personal relationships. Define your personal values so you know which actions are in alignment with those values.

7. Create a personal development plan. A good personal development plan takes all these factors into consideration—the WHAT, the HOW, the WHY, and the WHEN. And it focuses on long-term goals . So ask yourself:

• What skills will you build?
• How will you build them?
• Why will you build them?
• And when will you build them?

It can be helpful to create a 10-year plan to map out how you'll reach these goals.

8. Record your progress towards personal development. Keeping track of our progress as we move toward our personal development goals is key to making sure we're on the right track. Then we can pause and take a different direction if we've gone off course. By maintaining self-awareness and frequently checking in with ourselves, we can identify things that we need to devote more attention to. As a result, we can make better progress toward our personal development.

9. Keep developing yourself in new ways. The science is clear: The more ways we develop ourselves, the broader our skillset, and the more success we tend to have. So try learning some new emotional skills or do some activities to build new skills. You just might learn something that changes your life.

Facebook /LinkedIn images: GaudiLab/Shutterstock

Tchiki Davis, Ph.D. , is a consultant, writer, and expert on well-being technology.

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12 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills

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Written by  Scribendi

Anyone can learn to produce an academic essay if they begin with a few basic essay-writing rules. 

An academic essay must be based upon a solid but debatable thesis, supported by relevant and credible evidence, and closed with a succinct and thorough conclusion.

By adhering to the best way to write an essay, you can create valuable, persuasive papers even when you're under a time crunch!

What Makes a Good Essay?

As previously noted, the foundation of any good academic essay is its thesis statement. 

Do not confuse your thesis with your opening sentence. There are many good ways to start an essay , but few essays immediately present their main ideas.

After you draft your thesis, you can begin to develop your essay around it. This development will include the main supporting points of your essay, which will scaffold its main body. 

Essays also typically include a relevant and compelling introduction and conclusion.

Learn How to Write a Great Thesis Statement .

Understanding How to Write a Good Essay

When writing an academic essay, you must take a number of qualities and characteristics into careful consideration. Focus, development, unity, coherence, and correctness all play critical roles when it comes to distinguishing an exceptional essay from one that is less than perfect.

The following essay-writing tips can help writers organize, format, and support their essays in ways that fit their intended purpose and optimize their overall persuasiveness. Here are 12 essay tips for developing and writing your next academic paper.

1. Know What You Are Going to Write About Before You Start Writing

While untrained writers might just sit down and start typing, educated and experienced writers know that there are many steps to writing an essay.

In short, you should know what you want to say before you type a single word. The easiest way to narrow down a thesis and create a proper argument is to make a basic outline before you begin composing your essay.

Your outline should consist of rough notes that sketch out your introduction (including your thesis), the body of your essay (which should include separate paragraphs that present your main supporting points with plenty of evidence and examples), and your conclusion (which ties everything together and connects the argument back to your thesis).

2. Acquire a Solid Understanding of Basic Grammar, Punctuation, and Style

Before getting into more refined essay-writing techniques, you must have a solid grasp of grammar, punctuation, and style. Without these writing fundamentals, it will be difficult to communicate your ideas effectively and ensure that they are taken seriously.

Grammar basics include subject and verb agreement, correct article and pronoun use, and well-formed sentence structures. Make sure you know the proper uses for the most common forms of punctuation. Be mindful of your comma usage and know when a period is needed.

Finally, voice is tremendously important in academic essay writing. Employ language that is as concise as possible. Avoid transition words that don't add anything to the sentence and unnecessary wordiness that detracts from your argument.

Furthermore, use the active voice instead of the passive whenever possible (e.g., "this study found" instead of "it was found by this study"). This will make your essay's tone clear and direct.

3. Use the Right Vocabulary and Know What the Words You Are Using Actually Mean

How you use language is important, especially in academic essay writing. When writing an academic essay, remember that you are persuading others that you are an expert who argues intelligently about your topic.

Using big words just to sound smart often results in the opposite effect—it is easy to detect when someone is overcompensating in their writing.

If you aren't sure of the exact meaning of a word, you risk using it incorrectly. There's no shame in checking, and it might save you from an embarrassing word misuse later!

Using obscure language can also detract from the clarity of your argument—you should consider this before pulling out a thesaurus to change a perfectly appropriate word to something completely different.

4. Understand the Argument and Critically Analyze the Evidence

While writing a good essay, your main argument should always be at the front of your mind. While it's tempting to go off on a tangent about an interesting side note, doing so makes your writing less concise.

Always question the evidence you include in your essay; ask yourself, "Does this directly support my thesis?" If the answer is "no," then that evidence should probably be excluded. 

When you are evaluating evidence, be critical and thorough. You want to use the strongest research to back up your thesis. It is not enough to simply present evidence in support of an argument. A good writer must also explain why the evidence is relevant and supportive.

Everything you include should clearly connect to your topic and argument.   

5. Know How to Write a Conclusion That Supports Your Research

One of the most overlooked steps to writing an essay is the conclusion. Your conclusion ties all your research together and proves your thesis. It should not be a restatement of your introduction or a copy-and-paste of your thesis.

A strong conclusion briefly outlines the key evidence discussed in the body of an essay and directly ties it to the thesis to show how the evidence proves or disproves the main argument of your research.

Countless great essays have been written only to be derailed by vague, weakly worded conclusions. Don't let your next essay become one of those.     

6. Build a Solid Thesis to Support Your Arguments

A thesis is the main pillar of an essay. By selecting a specific thesis, you'll be able to develop arguments to support your central opinion. Consider writing about a unique experience or your own particular view of a topic .

Your thesis should be clear and logical, but it should also be debatable. Otherwise, it might be difficult to support it with compelling arguments.

7. Develop an Interesting Opening Paragraph to Hook In Readers from the Get-Go

No matter how you begin your essay, you must strive to capture the reader's interest immediately. If your opening paragraph doesn't catch the eye and engage the brain, any attempt at persuasion may end before the essay even starts. 

The beginning of your essay is crucial for setting the stage for your thesis.

8. Always Remember to Edit and Proofread Your Essay

Any decent writer will tell you that writing is really rewriting. A good academic essay will inevitably go through multiple drafts as it slowly takes shape. When you arrive at a final draft, you must make sure that it is as close to perfect as possible.

This means subjecting your essay to close and comprehensive editing and proofreading processes. In other words, you must read your paper as many times as necessary to eliminate all grammar/punctuation mistakes and typos.

It is helpful to have a third party review your work. Consider consulting a peer or professional editing service. Keep in mind that professional editors are able to help you identify underdeveloped arguments and unnecessarily wordy language, and provide other feedback.

Get Critical Feedback on Your Writing

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample, 9. when developing your essay's main body, build strong and relevant arguments.

Every sentence in the main body of your paper should explain and support your thesis. When deciding how much evidence to include in an academic essay, a good guideline is to include at least three main supporting arguments.

Those main supporting arguments, in turn, require support in the form of relevant facts, figures, examples, analogies, and observations. 

You will need to engage in appropriate research to accomplish this. To organize your research efforts, you may want to develop a list of good research questions . 

10. Choose the Format of Your Essay before Writing It

The final shape that your essay takes depends a great deal on what kind of format you use. Popular college essay format types include the Modern Language Association of America ( MLA ), American Psychological Association ( APA ), and Chicago Manual of Style ( Chicago style).

These formats govern everything from capitalization rules to source citation. Often, professors dictate a specific format for your essay. If they do not, you should choose the format that best suits your field.

11. Create Clear Transitions between Your Ideas

Although unnecessary transition words are the enemy of clarity and concision, they can be invaluable tools when it comes to separating and connecting the different sections of your essay. 

Not only do they help you express your ideas but they also bring a cohesive structure to your sentences and a pleasant flow to your writing. Just be sure that you are using the right transition words for the right purpose and to the proper effect.

12. Always Include an Organized Reference Page at the End of Your Essay

As a key component of MLA, APA, and Chicago Style formatting, the reference or Works Cited page is an essential part of any academic essay.

Regardless of the format used, the reference page must be well organized and easy to read so that your audience can see exactly where your outside information came from. 

To produce a properly formatted reference page, you may have to familiarize yourself with specialized phrases and abbreviations, such as " et al ." 

How to Write a Good Hook for an Essay

The key to a good hook is to introduce an unexplored or absorbing line of inquiry in your introduction that addresses the main point of your thesis. 

By carefully choosing your language and slowly revealing details, you can build reader anticipation for what follows. 

Much like an actual worm-baited fishing hook, a successful hook will lure and capture readers, allowing the writer to "reel them in."

How to Get Better at Writing Essays

You can get better at writing essays the same way that you improve at anything else: practice, practice, practice! However, there are a few ways that you can improve your writing quickly so you can turn in a quality academic essay on time.

In addition to following the 12 essay tips and guidelines above, you can familiarize yourself with a few common practices and structures for essay development. 

Great writing techniques for essays include brainstorming and tree diagrams, especially when coming up with a topic for your thesis statement. Becoming familiar with different structures for organizing your essay (order of importance, chronological, etc.) is also extremely helpful.

How to Write a Good Introduction for an Essay

To learn how to write a good essay, you must also learn how to write a good introduction. 

Most effective essay introductions begin with relatively broad and general subject matter and then gradually narrow in focus and scope until they arrive at something extremely specific: the thesis. This is why writers tend to place their thesis statements at the very end of their introductory paragraph(s).

Because they are generally broad and often relate only tangentially to an essay's main point, there is virtually no limit on what the beginning of a good introduction can look like. However, writers still tend to rely on somewhat cliché opening sentences, such as quotations and rhetorical questions.

How to Write a Good Conclusion for an Essay

Briefly put, a good conclusion does two things. It wraps up any loose ends and drives home the main point of your essay. 

To learn how to write a good conclusion, you will want to ensure that no unanswered questions remain in the reader's mind. A good conclusion will restate the thesis and reinforce the essay's main supporting points.

Take Your Essay from Good to Great

About the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing turn into a great one after the editing process. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained nearly 20 degrees collectively. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Essay Writing

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This resource begins with a general description of essay writing and moves to a discussion of common essay genres students may encounter across the curriculum. The four genres of essays (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes. Although these genres, also known as the modes of discourse, have been criticized by some composition scholars, the Purdue OWL recognizes the wide spread use of these genres and students’ need to understand and produce these types of essays. We hope these resources will help.

The essay is a commonly assigned form of writing that every student will encounter while in academia. Therefore, it is wise for the student to become capable and comfortable with this type of writing early on in her training.

Essays can be a rewarding and challenging type of writing and are often assigned either to be done in class, which requires previous planning and practice (and a bit of creativity) on the part of the student, or as homework, which likewise demands a certain amount of preparation. Many poorly crafted essays have been produced on account of a lack of preparation and confidence. However, students can avoid the discomfort often associated with essay writing by understanding some common genres.

Before delving into its various genres, let’s begin with a basic definition of the essay.

What is an essay?

Though the word essay has come to be understood as a type of writing in Modern English, its origins provide us with some useful insights. The word comes into the English language through the French influence on Middle English; tracing it back further, we find that the French form of the word comes from the Latin verb exigere , which means "to examine, test, or (literally) to drive out." Through the excavation of this ancient word, we are able to unearth the essence of the academic essay: to encourage students to test or examine their ideas concerning a particular topic.

Essays are shorter pieces of writing that often require the student to hone a number of skills such as close reading, analysis, comparison and contrast, persuasion, conciseness, clarity, and exposition. As is evidenced by this list of attributes, there is much to be gained by the student who strives to succeed at essay writing.

The purpose of an essay is to encourage students to develop ideas and concepts in their writing with the direction of little more than their own thoughts (it may be helpful to view the essay as the converse of a research paper). Therefore, essays are (by nature) concise and require clarity in purpose and direction. This means that there is no room for the student’s thoughts to wander or stray from his or her purpose; the writing must be deliberate and interesting.

This handout should help students become familiar and comfortable with the process of essay composition through the introduction of some common essay genres.

This handout includes a brief introduction to the following genres of essay writing:

• Expository essays
• Descriptive essays
• Narrative essays
• Argumentative (Persuasive) essays

Home — Essay Samples — Education — Study Skills — Personal Reflections on the Development of Certain Study Skills

Personal Reflections on The Development of Certain Study Skills

• Categories: Personal Experience Personal Growth and Development Study Skills

About this sample

Words: 818 |

Published: Aug 30, 2022

Words: 818 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Recommendations

• Burns, T., Sinfield, S. (2016). Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University (4th ed). London: Sage
• Cottrell, S. (2012). The Study Skills Handbook. 1st Edition. Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan
• Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Trought, F. (2017). Brilliant Employability Skills: How to Stand Out From the Crowd in the Graduate Job Market. 2nd Edition. Harlow: Prentice Hall

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Leadership Skills and Leadership Development Plan Essay

Leadership refers to the ability to influence people to attain certain goals and objectives. Good leaders possess certain traits that form the foundation of their leadership. These traits include honesty, confidence, charisma, trust, vision, good communication skills, and the ability to delegate. Despite possession of these traits, all leaders have weaknesses that limit the level of success they achieve. On the other hand, these weaknesses affect their leadership and lower their performance and productivity. I have several strengths and weaknesses in leadership.

My strengths in leadership situations include patience, open-mindedness, and focus. Patience is one of the traits that enable me to take control of matters while in leadership situations. Some problems require sufficient time and attention for leaders to develop appropriate solutions. I can work or wait for long hours if there is hope for a solution to a problem or completion of a task. Patience is also important in situations such as training because employees have varying speeds of learning. Therefore, it is necessary to accord them enough time to ensure that they learn effectively. Finally, the attainment of goals takes time. This requires patience on the part of the leader. Patience is a strength that forms one of the pillars of my leadership. Open-mindedness is another strength that I exhibit in leadership situations. It enables me to embrace ideas, opinions, and criticisms from other people with the aim of developing better solutions, plans, and strategies. Being an open-minded leader means that I am open to change and new ideas. Good leadership is developed through constant improvement that is achieved through responding to feedback and criticism. This requires an open mind. In addition, open-mindedness allows me to accept corrections when I do something wrong that affects other people. It enhances cooperation and teamwork among employees or team members. Finally, I possess the ability to focus on tasks until their completion. This trait is augmented by patience. Concentrating fully on a task increases the chances of completing it successfully. Moreover, it reduces the likelihood of making mistakes or doing a shoddy job.

My weaknesses in leadership positions include lack of charisma, poor problem-solving and decision-making skills, and poor communication skills. Charisma is an important trait because it involves inspiring and motivating employees to attain goals. I am not charismatic and thus find it hard to inspire and motivate employees. It is difficult for me to motivate employees and as such increase their productivity and performance. This is evident from my role as the leader of the development department at the IT organization. Another weakness I exhibit is poor decision-making skills due to inadequate experience and knowledge of leadership. The decisions that I make are usually misinformed and only include personal thoughts and perspectives. I do not involve other members in the decision-making process. I also have poor problem-solving skills. This is due to the unwillingness to seek opinions and different perspectives from other people. The notion that I am the leader prevents me from accepting apparent limitations. Therefore, the inflated ego prevents me from seeking assistance from people with more experience and expertise. Finally, I have poor communication skills. Poor communication comprises the inability to communicate goals and visions to employees, and the presence of frequent conflicts due to misunderstandings.

Without proper communication, a leader cannot manage employees effectively for the achievement of organizational goals. To develop my leadership capability, it is imperative to eradicate these weaknesses by acquiring skills to replace them. The development of strong decision-making and problem-solving skills will involve seeking alternatives to problems, seeking assistance, soliciting feedback and criticism, and developing contingency plans. On the other hand, it will be important to weigh the benefits and costs of each decision through a thorough evaluation process. It is important to consider the anticipated outcome of a decision or an action in order to determine its viability. Taking on more responsibilities and challenges will also improve these skills. To improve my communication skills, I intend to undertake a short training program on communication skills. The program will equip me with knowledge on the dos and don’ts of proper and effective communication. In addition, I will learn to listen more, speak clearly, and improve pronunciation. Finally, I intend to improve my charisma to be able to motivate and inspire employees. This will involve learning to be compassionate, cooperative, and open to new ideas. In addition, it will involve improving my confidence and self-esteem by embracing more responsibilities and challenges. Looking at things positively and learning how to be persuasive are also important aspects of developing my charisma. Acquiring strong persuasion skills is the most important aspect of developing charisma as a leader.

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