Did you get promoted into a leadership role because of your strong technical competencies and/or because of time in your company? You believe that what got you there is good enough to keep you there.
However, for a while now, you’ve noticed how other leaders, who don’t have the same technical competencies you do, keep getting promoted past you. You think they are more political and play the game that you won’t.
You also noticed that your employees are not responding to you as well as your peer’s teams are for them. You’re getting the sense your team is disengaged and not as motivated. You blame this on the unreasonable needs of today’s employees.
Well, that doesn’t sound like office politics, that sounds like your peers understand that they need more than technical competency to be a leader in today’s business world. They understand they need to adapt to today’s business environment and connect with their teams.
Today’s work force is typically more technically advanced at much earlier ages and they aren’t looking for the leader to provide as much technical expertise. They are however, looking for job satisfaction and they want to know that you care about them.
They want to know that you understand what they think and feel and that you can relate to them and make them feel supported and empowered.
As much as being so-called “touchy-feely” may be cringe inducing for you, you better open yourself up to learning how to be a true servant leader to be able to stay a leader and excel.
People with strong technical skills are always going to be needed in the business world. But things have changed and if you don’t have strong soft skills in today’s world, your leadership career may be dead in the water.
The Hard Truth About Soft Skills
Colleges and companies have been notoriously poor at building soft skills in leaders, but your company expects you to have them in today’s human-centered workplace.
The hard truth is that not having soft skills in today’s culture is the kiss of death for a leader.
Gone are the days of “put in a hard day’s work and be happy you have a job.” This generation of employees needs to know “why” they should work for you and be loyal. Gone are the clock-punchers.
Today’s employees won’t respond to poor soft skills. Your employee turnover rate will be poor. You will be constantly struggling to keep your team productive, and your superiors will be watching how you lead your team.
In turn, your chances of surviving, let alone moving forward in your career, are slim.
Trust Me, Having Soft Skills Will Help Your Career
I learned early in my career that I could not compete with those people that had strong technical skills…let alone lead them.
Don’t ask me how it happened, but somehow, I ended up in a lot of technology organizations where I was a fish out of water.
If I tried to compete with my peers, bosses, and my direct reports, I would fall flat on my face and lose credibility. But I learned something that served me well through my whole career.
If I concern myself more with making them look good and taking care of them, they will take care of me. Soft Skills!
I would do everything I could to build an environment and culture where they could shine and feel appreciated. I used soft skills to engage them, bring out their best and make sure they knew they were valued.
I was using servant leadership long before I knew it was an actual term. Servant leadership is the mother of all soft skills.
In response, my teams trusted me and were loyal. They took a whole lot of work and stress off my plate. It was a common-sense approach that is not commonly used.
Quite frankly, I made a career out of using strong soft skills.
What are the Most Commonly Known Soft Skills?
- Listening/Communication
- Teambuilding
- Problem-Solving
- Conflict Resolution
- Empathy
- Critical Thinking
- Adaptability
- Persuasion
- Decision-Making
- Stress Management
Here’s How to Start Building Your Soft Skills and Earning Your Team’s Admiration
First and Foremost, Listen to your employees:
- Create regular, two-way channels to get feedback and ideas from employees
- The frontline employees who are in the trenches every day have great ideas. It’s always amazing how often no one asks them for their input
Empathize with your employees:
- Your team needs to know that you get what they are going through, how they are feeling and what they are thinking
- Tell them you believe you understand what they may be going through and call it out. For example, “I bet this project makes you feel like you are drinking from a fire hose. I get it.”
Problem-solve with your employees:
- Using the example above, say “lets discuss how we can chunk this up so you don’t feel like your boiling the ocean and then let’s prioritize this list so you feel you can build good momentum.”
Ask the right questions:
- Ask them how they are feeling about their work
- Ask them what challenges they are facing and what concerns they have
- Ask questions such as what tools, resources, and support you need to be successful
Create an environment for innovative and creative thinking:
- Allow time for your team to step away from typical reactionary, operations work and let them brainstorm and strategize
- This type of work is more fun, and they need it integrated into their daily operational work – It breaks the monotony and invigorates them
Give employees autonomy and empowerment to make decisions without fear of making mistakes:
- Encourage them to not be afraid to make quick decisions on behalf of customers. Encourage them to think creatively and innovate
So How Do You Suddenly Build Soft Skills That Do Not Come Naturally to You?
They say the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Actually, being aware that you need to use soft skills takes you 50% of the way.
If I had a dollar for every leader who thinks they are great with their employees, but the employees have a whole different perception, I’d be writing this blog from my own private island.
Yes, some people are genetically more extroverted but if I can understand what the life cycle of developing software is, you can learn soft skills.
Soft skills are learnable and there are millions of articles on building them. That’s how important it is.
You must be intentional in continuously growing your soft skills because other leaders will be intentionally growing theirs.
Remember, there are many, many resources on how to build soft skills. Use them!
Trust me on this. If you build these skills and really learn to connect with your team, it will make your life as a leader so much easier, in so many ways. It’s a no-brainer.
