Soft skills are anything but.

My inspiration for this week's nudge came from a post that listed some valuable soft-skills.

It's going to be a bit of a rant, so grab a brew and settle in.

As you might imagine, the list included things that I often talk about, like?

• Growth Mindset
• Adaptability
• Active Listening
• Emotional Intelligence
• Motivation etc.

As flourishing introverts, those are without a doubt essential to being a successful leader.??

There were also some debatable things on the list, but I'll get to those later.

Ironically, the list was not the original poster's work, but that of someone else, who was credited.

Now as someone who has been a leadership & management trainer for over 30 years, there are several points that I want to make here.

ONE

I really want to change the 'soft skills' label because I think it gives the wrong impression.

When we refer to these interpersonal skills, qualities and attitudes as 'soft', it rather undermines their importance. These are professional skills, qualities and attitudes.

I remember one delegate refusing to attend a New Team Leader course as he said it was "just common sense".? Now, I'm not going to outright disagree with him, because much of this professionalism is common sense, especially if you've had a great role model show you the ropes. But having spent the number of years I have coaching & training managers, I can tell you that common sense is not always common practice.???

TWO

The soft skills label also relegates these vital skills to second class behind technical skills, which every organisation seems to find time and budget for. It's been understood for decades that emotional intelligence (EQ) is a far greater predictor of success than IQ, so why consider EQ as soft?

?

THREE

My last point is just how often we quieter ones have our work claimed or promoted by others. Don't just promote my work, promote me and my work. It would have been easy for the person who posted this to share the original work to their network. But no. They 'copy-paste' posted it themselves with a cursory credit. This is not good enough. It borders on a of lack of integrity, ironically, one of the 'soft skills' mentioned. I get that the credit given kept this just the right side of the line, but only just.???

I commented on the post that these were far from soft skills and added a few to the list, which is what he was asking for. I added empathy, situational humility and kindness.

Guess what?

No acknowledgment from the original poster.

So, was he just looking to reinforce his echo chamber?

I guess I'll never know, although the fact that he thanked pretty much everyone else for agreeing with him and adding their skills does point in that direction.

Now, how is this a useful 'nudge' for we introverts?

Good question.

Given how many introverts say they shy away from face-to-face interactions or video communication in favour of email, this is a reminder that it's going to be so much more difficult for them to master the professional skills of people management & leadership.

We introverts are not incapable of face-to-face, we just need to pre-charge our batteries for them.

And, I strongly suggest we schedule in recharge time afterwards.

All the while we opt-out and hide inside our introversion saying 'I can't', we reinforce the belief that introverts can't be great leaders.

We can and we are!

Let's reframe 'I can't' into 'I don’t feel confident to, yet'. And that yet is important because it opens the possibility of change, growth and learning.

Once you're honest about your 'yet's', you can build your own personal learning agenda so you close the gaps. That's where we start on the Frustrated to Flourishing programme.

Now, if your 'I can't' is actually 'I don’t want to, ever!' then there's no point in creating a learning agenda. You'll just need to accept that where you are is where you'll stay.

That's probably enough of a nudge for now, so I invite you to identify your yets and how you'll close the gap between seeing them and being beyond them.?

Now, a few of those debatable things.?

Time management

no such thing. We can't manage time itself, it ticks by at the same rate for us all. We can only decide how we spend, invest or squander the 1440 minutes we're given at the top of every new day. We would do better justice to call it Time-utilisation or priority management. It's all about what I prioritise after all.

Grit

Unfortunately, this has become shorthand for keep going regardless and bounce back unscathed. That's not how we operate as humans. It also misrepresents, or under represents the courage, resilience and determination it takes to keep going despite all we battle with and overcome.

Likeability

Whether other's like me is out of my control. If I bend myself out of shape so everyone 'likes me', who am I even? And, my job is as a leader is to be respected rather than liked.? That, they can trust my word and work is more important than that they like who I am.

So do tell me, what professional skills would you say were necessary for any introvert moving up the leadership ladder?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.