Soft Skill Mastery Supports These Four Effective Leadership Practices

Nancy Folan is a human resource executive and coach at Element Coaching Group.

With the increased adoption of AI technology in the working world, the need for soft skills and high emotional intelligence is reaching new heights. According to a 2023 edX report, executives believed AI would lead to around half of their workforces' technical skills becoming irrelevant by 2025. However, they didn't believe this spelled the end for workers. Instead, the report noted that people who possessed certain skill sets and capabilities, like problem-solving, clear communication and the ability to work well within teams, are better equipped to remain successful despite technical skill turnover.

That said, training and development for knowledge workers doesn't include much focus on soft skills. Many business programs only offer a handful of courses that touch on this area, and employers often reward team members based on their technical ability. So when those employees are promoted to management, a position that requires leading through change and working cross-functionally, many struggle to perform at a high level. This deficiency in soft skills can leave teams, departments and even companies unable to sustain business through peaks and valleys.

Closely related to soft skill development is the need for leaders to effectively navigate intergenerational differences, specifically regarding varied expectations of leadership. For example, Gen-Z employees look for employers and managers that value inclusion and transparency. Because leaders' management styles are often dictated by their generational background, it's important that they can manage people across all age cohorts.

The good news is that there are some immediate steps that leaders can take to sharpen their emotional intelligence, allowing for increased resonance with employees.

Involve Employees In Decision Making

Under the traditional command-and-control leadership style, managers tend to be directive and lean on their authority to get work done. They may assign a project with a set deadline and leave very little room for the employee to ask questions or raise concerns. This approach rarely works for today’s early-career talent, however, because they place greater emphasis on the intentionality of a message. Additionally, most Millennials or Gen-Z employees are opposed to hierarchy in the workplace, so it can become a source of contention within intergenerational teams.

By including employees in the process and treating them as partners, management can increase engagement in the task at hand and build rapport. As a result, employees are more likely to feel a direct connection to the organization’s goals. Collaborative decision making can look like presenting employees with the issue, not the solution; being open to alternate solutions; and celebrating great ideas, even if they may not solve the presenting issue.

Create Space For Curiosity

It can be tempting to become singularly focused on the tasks at hand, particularly when there are several competing priorities. Though this may seem like the fastest way to meet deadlines or please stakeholders, it leaves little room to question or improve the process. This can lead to missing out on more-efficient solutions.

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When managers lead with curiosity, they assume all parties are learners in the process. This creates space for all team members to learn from one another and develop the most effective solutions. Methods for embracing curiosity include taking time to explain how shifting departmental priorities are directly aligned to corporate strategy, creating a line of sight into what senior leaders are balancing or providing teams with insights from across the organization that they may not normally hear.

Engage All Talent

It can be easy for favoritism to influence even the most well-intentioned leaders. For example, they may lean on one or two team members for completing tasks because it feels like they have a symbiotic relationship. But this often creates resentment as other team members feel ignored, while the favored employees may start to feel overburdened.

Inclusive leaders know how to incorporate all team members' skills and leverage alternate ways to communicate transparently around how tasks are assigned. This fosters an environment in which everyone has an opportunity to grow. To start engaging every team member, managers should delegate tasks to those at the beginning of the learning curve and then have top talent act as mentors. This approach also encourages leaders to take risks and explore their own patterns when selecting team members for projects or tasks.

Be Transparent

Leadership rooted in intention, curiosity, authenticity and transparency fosters mutuality and ultimately trust. People are more willing to show up if they understand the “why” behind their work and how it benefits customers and employees. However, there may be times when confidentiality is necessary, and a key part of a leader's role is managing that delicate balance. Once that boundary is established, managers must serve as behavior role models. This includes being willing to share their mistakes and opportunities for learning along the way.

Foundational soft skills that have historically been marginalized have now come to the fore. Between technology that evolves at light speed and a workforce that demands humanity in their leaders, there's business risk in ignoring the importance of these capabilities. This moment is a call for leaders to tap into their humanity as a key developmental and leadership tool and gift to the self and others.

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