Deep skills not soft skills
Something that always makes me wince is the term “soft skills”. Dictionary.com gives the following definition of soft:
yielding readily to touch or pressure; easily penetrated, divided, or changed in shape; not hard or stiff:
However, when many people talk of “soft skills”, I get the impression they find little substance or feel they are not well defined. For some, it implies a lack of importance and are almost dismissive of the “soft skills”.
I find them to be the most critical skills. A friend of mine, Curtis Michelson, put it best when he said:
“facilitation, communication, listening, negotiating, writing, visualizing, and other relational oriented skills. Simply how to make friends across various facets of a business, building your network, is a big deal, and a ticket up a floor.”
Add self awareness, balance, empathy (yes, it’s a skill), leadership modeling, story telling (an ancient leadership skill), teaching and continuous personal improvement to that list and another label comes to mind: deep skills.
These are the skills that help you go deeper in your profession; deeper in your leadership; deeper in establishing your personal brand; deeper
So let’s stop calling them soft skills and call them what they are: deep skills
Disagree? Or see some that I missed? Please let me know in the comments or social media.