Soft Skills Are Increasingly Important at the Highest Levels of Leadership

A new analysis published in the Harvard Business Review revealed that soft skills are in high demand at the highest levels of leadership. As CEOs are increasingly expected to not only respond to shareholders, but to employees, customers, and the public, people skills are increasing in importance. The most important soft skills at the C-suite level, the study revealed, are a high degree of self-awareness, the ability to listen and communicate, and the capacity for empathy—that is, the ability to infer how others are feeling and thinking. There is data to back this notion up, too. According to the authors of the study, there was a 27 percent increase in C-suite job listings that emphasized social skills while those that emphasized hard skills were declined by 38 percent. What does this mean? Simply put, the old Jack Welch archetype of leading through money and fear is no longer effective, according to the study’s authors. Workers today aren’t interested in being bossed around. “Telling people who have deep expertise what to do, without persuading them or convincing them, is not that feasible,” the authors wrote.