Human Skills, Leadership Skills Are Anything But Soft

In this episode of Relationships at Work, communications and leadership nerd (and host) Russel Lolacher digs into "soft skills" and why calling them soft couldn't be further from the truth. 

Though language around "soft skills" is changing, the importance we put on these essential skills continues to struggle. 
Russel shares multiple reasons why these skills are so important and why organizations need to take them more seriously in order to create a healthy and successful organization. 

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Transcript

Welcome back to Relationships At Work – Your guide to building workplace connections and avoiding leadership blind spots.  I’m your host Russel Lolacher

I’m a communications and leadership nerd with a couple of decades of experience and a heap of curiosity on how we can make the workplace better. If you’re a leader trying to understand and improve your impact on work culture and the employee experience, you’re in the right place.

This mini-episode is a quick and valuable bit of information to get you prepared for the week ahead. 

Inspired by our R@W Note Newsletter, I’m passing on to you… 

Human Skills are Anything but Soft

It's taken a while, but the term "soft skills" to refer to human-centric skills is starting to get challenged. Hopefully so it can become less common. Thank goodness. And it's about time. Words matter. And “soft” is such a minimization of the power of this essential leadership skillset.

I'm sure when "soft skills" was first coined, there wasn't much thought to it. It was just a way of differentiating it from "hard skills".

Apparently, the U.S. military is usually credited with the early adoption and popularization of the term in the 1960s and 1970s, recognizing that technical skills were not sufficient for leadership and effectiveness in military operations, leading to the inclusion of "soft skills training" in their programs.

It does seem weird that an organization known for prioritizing the importance of leadership, would use language that could be seen as diminishing it. Weird. 

For some reason, it's still the preferred search term over "human skills" or “core skills”. Our previous guest Jen Buck even called them "power skills."

And yet, if these skills are so important, why do we seem to assume leaders have them? If you don’t agree with that, why don’t organizations do leadership skill reviews? Or ask leadership focused questions (not productivity questions) in job interviews? Why don’t we hold leaders accountable when they miss the mark, or allow bad leadership under their responsiblity? We take it for granted that they have them because leadership is far more focused on results rather than how we get those results. 

I’m going to go with "essential" or “core” skills instead of soft. Just feels right. 

So why? Why are these skills so important? Here's a few reasons why:

1.    Essential for Effective Leadership: We can’t talk about human, passionate, curious, kind leadership… etc. without them.  Skills like empathy, active listening, and effective communication are key to understanding and motivating team members, resolving conflicts, and creating a positive work environment. We lead people after all, not robots or widgets. These are not peripheral or secondary skills but central to successful leadership.

2.    Hard to Master: Contrary to what the term "soft" may imply, these skills are often hard to develop and master. They require continuous self-awareness, learning, and practice. Emotional intelligence, for example, involves a deep understanding of our emotions and the emotions of others, which is not an easy skill to cultivate if it doesn’t come naturally. And even if it does come naturally, it’s a muscle we need to exercise all the time.

3.    Impact on Business Outcomes: These skills have a direct link to the productivity we value so much.  Effective communication can lead to better team collaboration and productivity. And when I say communication, I don’t mean the “talk at” kind but the “talk with” variety. Empathy can improve customer relations and employee satisfaction, which in turn can lead to increased loyalty and better business performance. Funny what happens when we show we genuinely care. To inspire to motivate… that comes from these skills. 

4.    Quantifiable and Measurable: This is often where there will be push back. Can’t measure it. Human-centered leadership skills can be quantified and measured, just like more technical skills. Through feedback surveys, performance reviews, and other metrics, organizations can assess the impact of these skills on team dynamics and business results. We just have to treat those mechanism seriously and do them frequently. 

5.    Changing Work Environment Demands: The modern work environment, especially with the rise of remote work and global teams, demands a high level of competence in these skills. So much change. The ability to connect with and lead a team – a diverse team, a remote team requires more than just technical know-how; it requires strong interpersonal and cultural sensitivity skills.
 
You’ll hear CEOs talk about “I don’t know how to build a culture with remote workers.” I is the key part of that sentence. You know what I hear when I hear that statement - a lack of adaptability, lack of effective leadership and a lack of essential skills. At least that CEO is letting us know who they are and how they’ll fail the culture and employees. 

Calling these skills anything but essential implies they are a nice-to-have rather than integral to the growth and maintenance of a healthy culture. 

If we’re not sure how much value our culture puts on them, look at the questions we ask in job interviews, in what we reward and punish, in what we focus on for performance reviews, etc. We’re already being very loud and clear to our teams in how we value them. But are we as leaders listening? 

Essential skills are the DNA of a healthy organization. If we don't understand that, we may be contributing to a culture that's doing more harm than good.