Soft Skills are the New Power Skills

My new book is out! The two questions I am often asked about writing books are “is it hard to write a book?” and “are you making any money?” Let me tell you, yes, writing a book is very hard. The writing process is basically writing, editing, and rewriting - on repeat for days and months. It is painstakingly slow, both exhilarating and exhausting. And no, I am not writing books with the goal of making a lot of money. I write because I feel I have something of value to share. In writing The Savvy Professional: Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Workplace, I wanted to go back to my roots, honoring the Jewish traditions that have shaped my identity and my approach to life and work. I cite valuable teachings of Jewish sages that are still applicable and relevant today to all working professionals regardless of religious beliefs and practices. The purpose of the book is to help people enhance their performance at work and accelerate their career growth with mission-critical soft skills.

We are living in an era of continuous and rapid change. Correspondingly, every aspect of work is evolving. Thus, preparing for change and being adaptable are critical success skills. These two skills involve many other soft skills that are key to working well and effectively interacting with others to create opportunities. Nowadays, and continuing in the future, the most high-value work skills will be cognitive-behavioral in nature, both the introspection and interpersonal “soft” skills. In fact, these skills have become crucial success factors and rebranded as “power” skills in today’s workplace. However you want to call them: soft skills, power skills, or smart skills, strive to develop and sharpen them as they will enable you to cultivate your mental fortitude and to effectively manage the human side of work; aka, interpersonal relationships and interactions.

Both soft skills and hard skills are essential for career success. Combined, they make a robust skill set that takes careers to a whole new level along any of the three career stages.

What are the three career stages?

The First is largely self-directed: building a strong professional foundation by being directly accountable for assigned deliverables.

The second stage is largely team-directed: taking lead to manage and influence a team’s major outputs and deliverables.

The third stage is largely organizational-directed: extending reach and influence to set priorities and objectives for the deliverables of an entire unit, or an organization.

You can have significant impact in every one of the three career stages. The main difference is the level of input you have into high-level strategic decisions at the company-level. And at any stage, your goal should be to elevate your performance and become a better version of your professional self.

As a former HR business leader and an executive and career coach, I am often asked for career advice - that one thing that is always helpful for career growth and success. The short answer is, “it depends.” But joking aside, the key is to continuously hone and develop your craft paying close attention to the job market and industry trends to ensure you have the employability skills needed to remain competitive. The Golden Rule for career success is “Always Be Employable.” Know where you stand in your chosen profession, what you bring to the table, and whether your skills measure up. Your professional charter is to continuously enhance your employability skills, both “hard” and “soft,” to consistently bring more to the table and thus increase your market value. I challenge you to consider what makes you uniquely valuable to your current and potential employers.

So, what do employers want?

While the answer would vary from one employer to the next, it lies beyond just the core technical skills needed on the job (typically the qualifications to perform the job duties listed on job descriptions) to encompass the intangible job competencies, the personal attributes that elevate performance by allowing you to use the technical job skills more effectively in dynamic work environments. Your education and experience would make you a qualified candidate, for example, having the coding experience and skills to perform as a software development engineer; however, it is the “soft skills” that will make you stand out from the crowd. Soft skills are the new hard skills of today's workforce. It's just not enough to demonstrate the technical competencies of a job without the interpersonal skills to communicate and collaborate effectively. These are the skills you really need to add value to what you do and to get noticed. These skills are the building blocks of career advancement and success.

Mastering any skill takes awareness and dedicated practice, with the understanding that the work is never done, and there’s always room for improvement. The bottom line of my new book and this post is: always strive to improve no matter where you work or what your job title is. Career success is the culmination of your competencies and efforts. Treat your career like a book in progress. Each chapter builds a sequence in the framework of your career story. To make each chapter hit the right notes, plan ahead and make it meaningful.

Success comes in many forms and can mean different things to different people. Define what it really means to you, and how you can derive meaning from it. Keep in mind that while technical skills are the foundation of being successful on the job, alone they are not enough for career advancement. It is the soft skills that drive career progression and accelerate growth. Invest in developing your soft skills to make them your superpower.

To find out more, check out my new book The Savvy Professional: Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Workplace, to make yourself forever employable and successful (by your own definition.)