Study Suggests Soft Skills Vital to Business Success
A recent Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) Leadership Competencies study uncovered some of the top business competencies sought from upcoming leaders. The study consisted of 599 participants, and the questions explored three types of competencies (business, soft skills, and management).
In terms of soft skills competencies, the ones that tied directly to leadership success were creating an environment of trust and respect, coaching skills, community involvement, being a role model for organizational values, and emotional intelligence.
“I think what companies are starting to realize is that the competencies that have to do with building relationships are becoming just as important as the skills to build and maintain a business,” says Jay Jamrog, senior vice president of research at i4cp. Jamrog believes that emotional intelligence will be one of the most important competencies in the next 10 years, whether in the form of empathy or building relationships.
We are entering the Process Age, an age where relationships and communication skills and social-emotional intelligence is at a premium. Next Element offers a range of training, assessment, and coaching paths to build social-emotional soft-skills for the Process Age.
You might also like: Social Intelligence and Leadership and other Next Element White Papers.
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I hate the term soft skills. They had business and management and then soft skills. Soft makes these key skills sound mushy or “touchy-feely” I wish we could change them to fixed skills and fluid skills. It is our human (fluid skills) that make the fixed things work.
When we call them soft they also sound easy and something to do if you have a bunch of extra time.
Okay enough of a rant as I am glad our “human” or “fluid” skills are becoming of increasing importance.
David, I also wish we could find a better word for these very important social-emotional intelligence skills that can have such a profound direct impact on hard business outcomes. Not sure whether the answer is to find a new term, or to work harder to help the public discover the hard value of soft-skills.