“When people feel their leaders are more empathetic, they’re more willing to step in with new ideas.” — Bill Benjamin, Culture, Leadership, and Performance Expert

The workplace has changed drastically in the past five years.

Everything has been affected, from where to how to even why we work. Do you work in-office, fully remote, or hybrid? Do you complete your tasks yourself, or do you have the help of Artificial Intelligence tools to write, make images, or code? Do you think of work as your life, or do your work so you can live your life?

With all these changes to work, it’s no surprise trust in leadership has eroded. According to the Global Leadership Forecast 2025, trust in immediate leaders is at a low of 29%, while trust in senior leaders is at 32%.

With workplace dynamics changing and computers taking over some of our hard skills, leaders and employees both need to improve their soft skills to stay relevant in the coming years. 

According to futurist Zack Kass, the former Head of Go To Market at OpenAI, the skills that will set business people apart in the future are the soft ones—things like communication, empathy, and problem-solving. And it’s not just futurists who see soft skills as important. The Department of Labor has also identified soft skills as the key to competitiveness for workers in the 21st century.

Here are three of the skills you need to have:

1) Communication

Good communication is essential to good teamwork. And good communication boils down to how and when to communicate with your team or supervisor.

Tsedal Neely, professor at the Harvard Business School and bestselling author of Remote Work Revolution, says many communication problems at work develop from a lack of clarity. 

Neely suggests leaders and employees communicate on a regular basis, informally and formally. Informally, reach out to your team and make contact to clarify issues. Formally, schedule a one-on-one on a regular basis to touch base.

2) Empathy

In a changing workplace, empathy will be your key to adaptability and leadership. 

According to Culture and Performance expert Bill Benjamin, using your empathy increases your ability to perform under pressure and be compassionate in a crisis. 

Furthermore, research has shown that companies that have emotionally intelligent managers and leaders have better employees. Employees who feel they are supported will choose to give more than what is asked of them, driving overall organizational engagement.

3) Problem-Solving

Finally, problem-solving has become even more important in an ever-changing workplace. Problem-solving (or critical thinking) is your ability to come up with solutions to new and different situations. 

According to the Dean of Innovation, Jeff DeGraff, there are a number of great ways to come up with novel solutions to new problems. First, you can seek ideas from different fields and apply them to your own, you can work with a diverse team to generate novel solutions, or you can take breaks from work to allow ideas to be generated in your own mind.

If you would like to learn more about soft skills or hire a soft skills speaker for your next event, contact BigSpeak Speakers Bureau.

For More Ideas on Soft Skills

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7 Ways to Be More Creative According to the Dean of Innovation Jeff DeGraff

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