I think "soft skills" need a new name.
By calling them soft, we assume that they're not important. That it's okay not to develop them.
Because we can't quantify them, we think they're inconsequential.
We insinuate that soft skills are easy, nice-to-haves, irrelevant in professional settings.
Wrong!
Soft skills are damn hard!
Maybe we should have "hard skills" and "really hard skills."
Because if so-called soft skills were easy, we would prioritize them, and more people – especially people managers and leaders – would be competent using them.
If being empathetic was easy, managers would stop being jerks.
If developing interpersonal skills was easy, executives could stay present in uncomfortable conversations about race, identity, and diversity.
If being curious was easy, leaders would be genuinely interested in the lived realities of people "not like them."
If communicating how we feel was easy, all of us would have the courage to be vulnerable and authentic and inclusive.
Soft skills are really hard. That's why we don't develop them.
And then we're left with less compassion, less trust, less connection, less belonging.
I, for one, am working to change that dynamic. Are you with me?