4 Soft Skills You Need for Career Success After Police Foundations Training

Being equipped with real-world knowledge is key when training for a career in law enforcement. Whether your goal is to work within the OPP, RCMP, Military Police or as a Correctional Officer, soft skills will help you to excel in your pursuits. As opposed to hard skills, which are technical and tangible, soft skills are personal attributes that are more intangible and focused on harmonious interaction with others. They enable professionals to have the right attitude and instincts to succeed and are specific to each vocation. For a career in law enforcement, certain soft skills will be useful for things like trust and communication. Read on for four soft skills that will help you find career success.

1. Law Enforcement Professionals Have Empathy Towards Others

Being able to maintain empathy for the people you interact with helps with mental well-being by fulfilling the human need for connection. Emotional regulation also comes into play with empathy, in which we take in feelings and experiences of other people, without allowing the emotions to overwhelm us. Emotional regulation is a skill that helps in handling distressing feelings, which is quite handy in the stressful field of law enforcement.

With a deeper appreciation for what other people experience, those working in law enforcement are able to have more positive communication in their day-to-day events. A large part of empathy is being able to appreciate experiences that others have, but you don’t have. This leads to the topic of diversity, both when interacting with the public and within law enforcement itself. Issues in diversity are a part of police foundations courses and will help you to better understand this topic.

2. Active Listening Skills for a Career after Police Foundations Courses

Law enforcement professionals deal with people who want their voices to be heard, either after experiencing a crime, or for information and support purposes. When active listening is demonstrated in these situations, the public is more likely to trust you and feel that you understand them. An active listener can correctly interpret the needs communicated by others, which is very important in conflict resolution. Bringing conflict to a peaceful end through de-escalation is an important responsibility of a professional working in law enforcement, when possible. It’s helpful to be able to accurately understand what the involved individuals are saying to know how best to de-escalate the situation.

3. Adaptability for Unpredictable and New Situations

Being in different, new, unpredictable situations is what the everyday experience entails for a law enforcement professional. It’s not possible to know exactly how events will take place when working in law enforcement. Adaptability allows you to react to situations and changes that aren’t by the book, calmly and confidently. If you are someone who enjoys constant change, you will likely thrive on this aspect of the industry. By learning as much as possible from every situation and staying open-minded, you can be an adaptable law enforcement professional, taking surprises and changes as they come.

4. Communication Skills for Success Following Police Foundations Training

Communicating is fundamental to working with the public, especially in situations where tensions may be high, or people may be experiencing stress. Being clear and intentional with communication helps build a rapport with different individuals, where a mutual trust can grow and benefit whatever situation has arisen. Communication essentials are an important part of police foundations training. Nonverbal communication is also one of the soft skills that makes a great law enforcement professional. Tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures and enunciation can all affect how verbal messages are received. In many cases, these things can affect communication even more than the actual words that are said. Are you interested in what a police foundations program has to offer? Contact Canadian Business College for more information.