Most of us have personal experience with medical professionals that can help us understand the difference and the value of hard (technical) skills and soft (people/life) skills. Consider the highly skilled surgeon who lacks a compassionate bedside manner. The surgeon’s soft skills deficiencies are less enduring to patients and their healing process. In fact research by malpractice insurance providers reveals that doctors who are struggle to convey empathy toward their patients are more likely to be sued. The risk of malpractice litigation has less to do with their technical ability (hard skills) than their soft skills. That said, highly skilled surgeons can still have successful careers despite being people skills deficient. But they struggle to reach their full potential. In the graphic below, they would be categorized toward the bottom as individual contributors.
Organizational Studies show that as people rise up the rungs of the corporate ladder, the importance of technical issues is less significant. At top management levels, 90% of executive effectiveness is dependent on the ability to handle people issues. With each step up the corporate ladder and up the chart, the demand for your people skills increases while demand for your technical expertise decreases.
In the absence of a formal development process, there are two ways.
What is your experience? How have you learned?
What happens when people are left to their own devices to gain their people skills? For Role Models to succeed, you better have good ones. If not, there can be a lot of costly errors in the trial and error process. Sound expensive? It can be, especially when your poor role models are breeding more poor role models. So the alternative is to continue to invest in developing essential people skills as key people are promoted.
With today’s more frequent job hopping, some employers are less willing to invest in developing the soft skills vital to their management success. For them, I share the word of an old role model of mine…
The truth of the matter is that investment in developing soft skills can improve both retention and recruiting along with performance.
What is your potential to benefit from improving soft skills? This quick evaluation might help. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 = outstanding, 1 = poor), how would you rate in the these categories? Rate yourself and if you want, rate your organization.
You’re invited to share your scores with me for an enhanced discussion.
Tom Lemanski helps accomplished leaders unlock potential, solve complex challenges, and amplify their impact.
Effective leadership is the key to driving meaningful, lasting success in a fast-changing world.
Tom’s focus on innovative strategies and self-awareness creates transformative results for leaders striving for the next level.
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