Soft skills are the personal characteristics that influence your ability to work well with others. In fact most of the physiotherapy employers I interacted with value candidate’s soft skills more than professional skills. Most of the employers said that they can train their employees at work for the somewhat lacking professional skills. But the soft skills are something that one needs to nurture on their own. So in this article let’s explore soft skills for physiotherapists and how to start developing them.
Soft skills #1: Communication Skills
As a physiotherapist you are always interacting with others, may it be you patients, their caregivers or your colleagues. You are educating patients, caregivers about the pathophysiology and the treatment plan. Also, you are documenting the patient’s progress and developing a plan of care with other team members. To provide the value based care to your patients you need to excel in communication skills
Effective communication consists of:
Listening: Communication is more than just “ getting your message across clearly”. To be honest, the most important attribute of a good communicator is the ability to listen effectively.
Empathy: Empathy is understanding the situation from another’s point of view. This involves listening with your ears, eyes and heart. That way you will listen to their words, body language and emotions.
Open mindedness: If you are stubborn in your ways, other people might not feel comfortable to share their thoughts with you. It is also important from your employer’s standpoint that you are willing to learn and open to new concepts.
Respect: Respect is a two way street. You need to give respect in order to gain it back. Being distracted when another person is talking to you is a rookie mistake many people make.
Tips to get started with effective communication skills
- Put your phone away and maintain eye contact when another person talks to you. This shows them that they have your undivided attention.
- Listen actively: When another person is communicating with you, listen closely to what they are saying and reflect the emotions of what is being said. Don’t just rephrase.
Example:
Rephrasing:
Patient: “ I didn’t sleep well last night because of my back pain”
PT: “ I see that you back pain is interfering with your sleep”
Reflecting:
Patient: “ I didn’t sleep well last night because of my back pain”
PT: “ I see that you back pain is interfering with your sleep, oh, that must be rough ”
- Try to really understand what another person is saying to you. This goes beyond rephrasing the words. You need to get in another person’s shoes and understand their side of the story.
- When another person is done explaining their side to you, summarize what you understood and ask questions to get more clarity on their perspective.
- Pay attention to non verbal communication. Communication experts mention that words represent only 10% of the communication. 30% is represented by the sounds and tone and about 60% is represented by the body language.
Soft skills #2 Time management skills
Whether you have your own practice or you are working for an organization, you will have many things to do in a limited amount of time. On any given day, you will have a number of patients to treat, notes to complete, equipment to maintain, home exercises to write and so much more. If you have 10 tabs open in your brain, you will not be able to focus on a task in hand.
Poor time management skill is an invitation for chaos in your life. Time is a limited resource and needs to be used wisely. Experts say, time management is life management!
Effective time management consists of:
Planning: Planning and having routines provides the much needed clarity for your day. You can start your day with intention and knowing what you are going to do. Plan your week on the weekend, Plan your day the night before.
Prioritization: Know the difference between urgent and important. Check out the Eisenhower matrix below to understand what needs to be prioritized.
Setting boundaries: If you are saying yes to everybody else, you are saying no to yourself. So know your boundaries and say no even if it is hard. To be honest, saying no is something I used to struggle with a lot but I am working on it!
Tips to enhance your time management skills:
- Make to do lists. Keep a notepad handy, everytime you think of a task or an idea, write it down. Brain is for having ideas, not storing them.
- Plan ahead of time. Also, plan for commonly occurring events such as patients showing up late or no shows.
Example:
Think of the tasks to complete in an unforeseen free time such as patients showing up late. Also be prepared and have strategies for the situations when a patient shows up at the wrong time and you have to treat more than 1 patient at a time.
- Use the Eisenhower Matrix for prioritizing your work.
- Do not multitask. Research has shown over and over again that your productivity decreases when you try to multitask.
- Hell yeah or no: The main idea is to say yes to the things you feel “hell yeah” about, say no to other things.
Soft Skills #3: Leadership skills
Physiotherapists often need to take on leadership roles sometime in their career. If you are thinking of starting your own practice, you will need these skills sooner than later. To be a good leader, you will need to nurture communication and time management skills first.
Apart from having sound professional knowledge and skills, most of the leaders have exceptional soft skills and high emotional quotient.
Effective leadership consists of:
Clarity: Clarity is having a clear vision for yourself and your enterprise. As a head physiotherapist you need to know where exactly you want your enterprise to be in the next 5 years. Do you want to serve at multiple locations? Do you wish to make physiotherapy more accessible?
Initiative: Initiative is taking a leap and doing the thing you need to do even if you are the first one doing it. Initially, I struggled a lot with taking initiative. I know it is uncomfortable! But it is worth it. Work outside of your comfort zone, pitch new ideas, reach out to new people. You will be afraid to take the first step, do it anyway!
People management skills: Major part of people’s skills includes communication skills. Apart from that you will need to learn patience and learn not to take things personally.
Integrity: Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching. You are answerable to your enterprise’s vision and mission. Integrity is one of the important qualities that lets you sleep peacefully at night.
Tips to develop leadership skills
- Take initiative, even if that makes your palms sweat!
- Don’t shy away from asking questions. When it comes to asking questions I have 2 philosophies: “ If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no” and “The only silly question is the one that you never dare to ask.”
- Have a clear vision for yourself. Get clarity on what you want for yourself. What kind of lifestyle do you want to have? What kind of work you see you see yourself doing at the end of 5 years.
- Network and meet new people: Reach out to people who have similar interests as you. Don’t miss the opportunity to network. Ask questions to people about their journey and what inspires them.
- Keep learning and upgrading: There is so much to learn in professional and personal realms. Try and keep an open mind to new concepts, lessons and opportunities.
Developing soft skills is not a day’s work. I am still working on nurturing these skills. Take one day at a time and do the best you can. Feel free to reach out to me if you need more guidance.
My goal is to help PT students and professionals across India navigate through their career! I know making a career decision is intimidating, not knowing what to do can make it worse. But, there are so many physiotherapists out there in India, who are doing so well! So can you! I believe in you!
If you need more help with your PT career, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Instagram or fill out my contact us form.
Hello, My name is Tejashree Limaye. I am a physiotherapist with 10+ years of experience. I help you go from being stuck in your career to finding a job you love! I provide career guidance about clinical and non clinical PT career in India. I also help you with US PT licensing process. Welcome to my blog, I hope you find the exact guidance you have been looking for!