The 7 Most Important Soft Skills

While I was interviewing the legendary Tom Peters for my Forbes article on the 25th anniversary of personal branding (Tom is the father of personal branding, a genius to whom I owe a huge amount of gratitude), he reminded me of something he once said, "Soft is hard."

It's true. Mastering soft skills can be challenging. Yet, it's absolutely essential for bolstering your personal brand and for getting noticed, acknowledged, and promoted.

In this episode:

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Soft Skills Are Hard Won

Developing your soft skills takes deliberate effort and practice. But it's worth the effort because they can't be replicated by robots. While AI powered bots can ace the bar exam and accurately complete most tax forms, they can't offer something that we can - our humanity, our ability to build relationships, think creatively, innovate, influence, and inspire.

As you progress in your career, soft skills become even more crucial. Mastering them early on can help you prepare for the transition from being an individual contributor to a management role, while expanding them can enhance your leadership abilities and inspire your team.

According to a Harvard Business Review article "Why Do So Many Managers Forget They're Human Beings?" by leadership expert Rasmus Hougaard, about 70% of leaders rate themselves as inspiring and motivating. However, employees perceive their leaders quite differently. McKinsey's 2022 Great Attrition research found that uncaring and uninspiring leaders were one of the top three reasons why employees chose to quit their jobs, says Emily Field, co-author of The Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work.

Soft Skills are Social Skills

The term "soft skills" makes these critical interpersonal attributes seem less important than the so-called hard skills (which is also a poor descriptor for the technical skills required for a specific job). To give soft skills the import they deserve, let’s all agree to start calling them the more accurate and descriptive term: social skills.

With strong social skills, you can thrive at work. And, as technology takes over, social skills become absolutely critical. You might be great at crunching numbers or coding like a pro, but if you can't work well with others, you won't get very far.

Harness the Power of the 7 Most Critical Social Skills

In the ever-evolving professional landscape, excelling at your job requires mastery of these seven essential social skills:

1.Self-Awareness: Lay the groundwork for your triumph by embracing self-awareness, the most crucial of all soft skills. Understand your values, purpose, strengths, challenges, and blind spots, unlocking the key to authentic and meaningful interactions with others. Attend my upcoming webinar on July 25th at noon E.T, where I'll reveal the profound connection between self-awareness and personal branding.

2) Feedback: Both giving and receiving feedback are essential for keeping relationships on solid ground and for making measurable performance improvements (Check out this previous Personal Brand Boost newsletter all about feedback, and get free access to the 360Reach Personal Brand Survey!).

3) Emotional Intelligence: The ability to manage your emotions and the emotions of those around you is essential for nurturing relationships. EQ trumps IQ in today's workplace.

4) Listening: Arguably the most challenging of all communication skills, listening is essential for understanding others and showing them that you value what they have to say. Listening in the virtual world, where visual cues can be hidden, takes even more effort and practice.

5) Inclusive Leadership: With less in-person connection, people are feeling untethered. Leaders must make their people feel included and a sense of belonging to the organization. This requires getting to know people on a deep, emotional level.

6) Coaching: Adopting a coaching mindset helps you engage with your employees and colleagues in productive and non-confrontational ways. Coaching is a high EQ way of enabling your people to be their best, without being directive, demanding or demeaning.

7) Virtual Presence: While mastering the technical aspects of Zoom is not a social skill, showing up as confident and leading captivating hybrid meetings when you have fewer visual clues and are competing with a suboptimal meeting environment (such as a 13” computer screen) is a social skill that's particularly relevant now. With loneliness increasing and connectedness waning, being adept and facilitating meetings from a people perspective pays dividends beyond the action items that are doled out.

My challenge for YOU

Identify the social skill that will serve you best in your current situation. Then, commit to enhancing it. Consider enrolling in relevant courses, seeking guidance from a mentor, and dedicating a week to focused practice. Document your progress and watch the transformation unfold.

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