Your professional trajectory may change if you truly understand this idea. So let's get started!
Let's start with a simple definition:
Hard skills include things like programming, creating inventive advertisements, and Excel modeling. They can be learned through formal education or online courses and are typically specialized, technical skills.
Soft skills are'softer' because they are less tangible. People management, leadership, EQ, and rapport-building are a few examples.
📉 Hard skills tend to matter less over time
As your career progresses and you get more senior, your technical or hard skills often become less important than your soft skills:
💭 Think about the role of a senior person at most companies, say a CEO. Their role rarely involves using the hard skills they developed throughout their career: they're not programming, creating Excel models, or designing marketing ads — all of which might have been hard skills they needed when they were younger.
🛑 Senior professionals stop using hard skills that actually got them into the industry. Sure, they might benefit from having had experience with that skill, but in general, those skills matter less — they can always delegate tasks that need those skills to others.
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🤝 Instead, they spend most of their time managing others, building relationships, motivating others, speaking with other departments or proritizing what's important. These are all soft skills!
📈 Why you should actively develop your soft skills
⛰️ It's a mistake to not actively work on your soft skills. That could restrict your growth later in your career, especially if you eventually want to move into a senior leadership role.
💫 Additionally, if you ever want to change careers, soft skills are the most transferrable — if you're an effective leader in a marketing team, you'll also be able to effectively lead a non-profit. It's the same skill set.
🌱 You might think that soft skills just come naturally, and you'd be right. A lot of them do. But, if you actively focus on improving them, you'll get much better at them and reach senior positions quicker.
⏱️ Soft skills also need to be developed over time. In ten years, you can't just take a course on becoming a better leader and expect to become one. You need that practical, first hand experience.
🎯 How to develop your soft skills
So, how do you get better at your soft skills if you can't go to school for them? Here are a few ideas:
👥 Take a leadership role in meetings you're part of.
Consistently exposing yourself to leadership situations helps you hone your leadership style and become a better leader. If you're junior, ask your manager if you can lead more meetings, even if it's a short, daily 15-minute standup meeting.🗣️ Get involved in your industry.
Offer to speak at events or meetups and share your knowledge in your industry. You'll build your communication and storytelling abilities, both of which are critical soft skills at the executive level.🙋🏻 Take on more responsibility in your existing projects.
Offer to help with project management, budget planning or feature prioritization. For example, tell your manager, "Could I try estimating the ROI for this project?" — use the opportunity to get better at activities typically owned by senior leaders.🕴🏽 Do things outside your immediate job.
Especially ones that involve communicating with other teams or external stakeholders. This will build your management and communication skills.
Let me know in the comments if there are other things you actively do to develop your soft skills — I'll pick the best ones and post them in a future article!
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