How to Get Better at Soft Skills and Why You Need Soft Skills

Your vision is that everyone on the team has all of the skills required to be the best they can be at their job. Often, specific tools are considered to ensure people can do their job, if training is needed it will move forward. Job descriptions include 15 to 20 daily technical requirements of the job. Why is it that nearly 100% of the day is spent interacting with people in most jobs and no one talks about the skills needed to handle people and work effectively or the soft skills? Soft skills are always listed on the job posting, but it’s always given the least weight and it’s almost always at the bottom. This article is going to define soft skills, why they are important, provide examples, and how to improve them.

More about soft skills

Soft skills are defined as the personality and other characteristics of a person that guide how they interact with people at work, and their level of interpersonal skills, also known as core skills. This includes but is not limited to how you work with others, how you handle yourself, solve problems, communicate, and your flexibility. Part of the reason these end up as secondary or at the bottom of job descriptions is that they aren’t something you are directly taught in school like technical skills are. Another reason is they are often subjective as to the level you are at. Finally, it’s a difficult item to gauge, and there isn’t exactly a grade, score, or certificate.

Why soft skills are important

Deloitte states that jobs that require high levels of soft skills will grow 2.5 times as fast as other jobs and that they will be 66% of all jobs by 2030. Earning a college degree or trade certificate is not enough anymore. You must have the technical skills, along with the people and interpersonal skills to be successful.

An example of soft skills

The easiest example to convey the importance of soft skills is a doctor. You may have a doctor with all of the technical skills possible and he or she can treat you in the best way possible. However, if that doctor speaks abruptly, doesn’t explain things to you, and makes you feel uneasy, he or she is lacking the soft skills to interact with patients and most people would want to find a new doctor that can explain their problem, proposed treatment and comfort them. It’s the same with employees and work. Those soft skills are required to be successful at work.

The top, most important soft skills through 2025

According to monster.com, topuniversities.com, and Indeed.com below are the top soft skills that people need to develop to be successful at work.

1. Effective communication

If you can do this well, your team hears your ideas and thoughts and acts on them. You are also able to take in what people say by listening well, understanding, and then taking action on what is said. You convey the message you intend to properly and there is little to no confusion after a discussion.

Example: Your team is talking about an upcoming project. Each person contributes ideas, and you are able to determine the best ones to move forward and what the action plan is. This signals you heard them, asked the right questions and understood well enough to act to get a completed project with little to no further discussion on that same topic.

2. Teamwork

If you can do this well, you are able to work well with other people to achieve goals.

Example: You are new to a team of four people from various locations in the world. You are able to work with each member effectively to get your project complete. You are able to adapt your style of work, read people, you have higher emotional and cultural intelligence in order to most effectively work with other people. You likely have experience in building teams with frameworks like Tuckman’s 5 Stages of teams and using team charters at the start of a new team.

3. Adaptability

If you can do this well, you can change based on the situation or your surroundings and pivot when new ideas or changes need to happen.

Example: You are working on a project to gain customers and you find that 30 days in, it’s not going as expected. Adaptable people would be able to identify the deficiency and make changes to try new paths in a proactive manner and not wait for direction to do so. This may include the need to change course with the project and not get frustrated by it, but to instead embrace it and change deliverables if needed.

4. Ability to solve problems

If you can do this well, you find resolution when issues arise and in a timely manner.

Example: You are working on a project where the team gets stuck and you are able to identify there is a problem, make and evaluate all suggestions, and act to resolve it so the team can keep moving forward quickly.

5. Ability to critically observe and resolve conflict

If you can do this well, you are able to use all applicable senses to gather information before making snap judgments or decisions.

Example: You witness team tension between team members and instead of letting it get far, you are quickly able to identify the problem and tactfully work towards resolving the problems to keep things moving smoothly. You likely have familiarity with frameworks such as Christopher Moore’s Wheel of Conflict.

6. Leadership

If you can do this well, people tend to follow your lead, you inspire others, set direction, and pave new paths.

Example: A natural leader often emerges in new teams, where people tend to follow the suggestions and guidance of that person. You likely have familiarity with what it means to be a servant leader.

7. Social influence

If you can do this well, similar to leadership, you will have an intentional or unintentional effect on people and change their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

Example: If you’re on a team and others tend to start adopting your views or behaviors, you have an ability to persuade others.

8. Creative and innovative mindset

If you can do this well, you are able to think of new things to try, drawing from experience and creativity. You know that just because you've always done something doesn't mean that is the only way, you are able to think outside the box. You are often looking for new ideas and ways to do things as in the latest and greatest out there.

Example: This would be seen in determining new ways to expand the business and you are able to find new ad platforms based on some research, experience, and thinking of new ways to solve customer problems. You likely search out and utilize tools like customer journey maps to guide these ideas.

9. Willingness to learn

If you can do this well, you are open-minded to learning from other people and sources. You know that you don't know everything and value diversity in ideas.

Example: You appreciate being around others with different experiences and don’t view it as a threat but as an opportunity to learn. This could be a new hire or people at a conference. You take the opportunity to ask questions and get ideas and opinions with an open mind without having the thought that you know more than them or that because they have a certain title they won't have anything to offer in terms of knowledge.

10. Integrity

If you can do this well, your word means everything, you have strong morals, and do the right thing even when it’s difficult.

Example: You find that you’re getting credit for a project that you didn’t lead and instead of falsely taking the credit you set it right and give proper credit to who led the project.

Soft skills are important, so how do they get developed?

1. Determine where you are strong and where you are weak as a starting point through self-reflection and do simple Google searches for resources.
2. Ask managers, co-workers, and friends for honest feedback to assist in identifying weaknesses and for suggestions on how to improve.
3. Look into classes online from places like Coursera.org or in person.
4. Listen and observe others who have the skills you are weak in and try to mirror them.
5. Volunteer for leadership roles on teams outside of work that can help develop these skills.
6. Try doing things you don’t normally do or things you aren’t familiar with to start thinking in different ways.

In summary, soft skills are required to successfully interact with people at work and to effectively get work done. They are becoming increasingly important in the next few years and beyond. If you find you have weaknesses in any of the top skills listed, it’s imperative to figure out how you are going to improve them, and the sooner the better.

Written by Nicole Hullihen, March 15th, 2022