How come we call people skills ‘soft skills’ when they appear to be the most challenging, difficult and needed skills in commerce and government, requiring courage, authenticity and practice?
I wonder if they were named by a boss who was scared to be seen as both caring and competent and wanted to be seen as tough.
People skills aren’t ‘soft’, they are hard, challenging though learnable, if you have the guts to go there.
The main reason leaders and managers (including some HR professionals) avoid dealing effectively with unacceptable behaviour and performance is because they are scared to deploy those skills, or worse still, they don’t know how to.
Instead they hide behind process, delayed and deployed as a last resort.
By then they’ve lost trust and respect and created disengagement amongst good employees, who now see them as weak.
My plea to these leaders and managers is to please step up, learn and be great – because you can.
What do you think?
