Friday 5 June 2015

Soft is hard and hard is soft

When I Googled "soft skills" today there were over 7 million results.

I was pleased to see my colleague Maree Harris feature twice in the top 10. I recommend her book.

There were only 430,000 results on Google for "hard skills."

One was this article about employers demanding hard skills over soft skills. WTF?

When articles like this refer to skills gaps they're usually referring to hard skills. The largest skills gap in my view is in soft skills.

I'd much rather employ someone with soft skills willing to learn the hard skills than employ someone with the hard skills yet little in the way of soft skills. You?

For me self-awareness is the number one soft skill. It's hard to be self-aware. It requires continuous personal work.

Leaders who are self-aware are more aware of others and therefore better leaders. How aware are You?

Real leadership is all about your mastery of soft skills. It's hard work.
Real management is all about hard skills. It's soft work because it's simple to do yet only meaningful when you do the hard work first.

Be remarkable.
Ian

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