Why Are Soft Skills so Tough to Learn?

Have you ever met someone who was perfect on paper? They went to university, have the appropriate training and may even have the requisite years of experience. However, their social skills aren’t quite right, they have difficulty getting along with members of the team, their communication style is brash, they don’t allow others to shine and a myriad of other challenges that contribute to poor leadership. These skills are known as soft skills or people skills and are usually not measured or taken into consideration for performance evaluation. Nevertheless, soft skills are extremely important in the workplace.

Why are soft skills important?

If you’re of the opinion that people get paid to work and social relationships in the office are of little value, you may want to reconsider this stance. An ability to work and communicate well with others is an invaluable social trait that contributes to career success (Cillo et al., 2019) career satisfaction and job performance (Ramadhan et al., 2021). Failure to foster good work relationships can lead to a career plateau (Tremblay, 2021; Tripathy, 2020), a feeling of stagnation due to lack of opportunities for growth or promotion. A few soft skills that have been highlighted as crucial for career development are positive attitude, communication skills, strong work ethics, teamwork and time management (Tripathy, 2020).

Why is it so difficult to acquire soft skills?

Arguably, the most obvious reason is that throughout our traditional educational system these skills are not taught. The focus is generally more technical skills such as language or math that are tangible and measurable. Furthermore, depending on one’s culture open communication and skilful manoeuvring of social relationships may not be considered a desirous ability. Additionally, soft skills also require a certain level of self-reflection and openness to feedback from others. Self-reflection includes awareness of one’s behaviour, identifying triggering events, recognizing learning opportunities and actively seeking personal development of coping skills (Bucknell et al., 2022). Self-reflection is considered positive and a good indicator of mental health. This is different from rumination, which include repetitive and uncontrollable thoughts about events. Rumination is considered negative and prevents insight, as your mind becomes stuck in a negative feedback loop and is unable to extract lessons or patterns in your behaviour.

How can we improve soft skills?

Due to the abstruse nature of soft skills, experience, role play and other simulations are the best ways to learn and teach soft skills. Two great ways for your organization to achieve this is by offering specialized workshops or courses. Workshops focused on peer collaboration, critical thinking, goal setting, networking skills and coping strategies have been found to be effective in developing soft skills and have been found to improve the overall social connections and camaraderie among participants (Lee et al., 2018).

In addition to teaching the typical technical skills, some universities have started providing courses dedicated to teaching soft skills. This includes industry-specific communication skills, organization, time management, problem solving, email etiquette and phone skills (Warner, 2021). Applying experiential learning via seminars, reflections, self-evaluations, and outreach to community organizations, researchers found that participants reported improved communication, interpersonal, teamwork, and self-regulation skills (Levkoe et al. 2014; Lund & Lee, 2015).

If you are looking for ways to build soft skills on your own, you can work on things like:

• Empathy

• Critical thinking

• Teamwork

• Integrity

• Self-awareness

• Communication

• Dependability

• Adaptability

References

Bucknell, K. J., Kangas, M., & Crane, M. F. (2022). Adaptive self-reflection and resilience: The moderating effects of rumination on insight as a mediator. Personality and Individual Differences, 185, 111234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111234

Cillo, V., Garcia-Perez, A., Del Giudice, M., & Vicentini, F. (2019). Blue-collar workers, career success and innovation in manufacturing. Career Development International, 24(6), 529-544. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-11-2018-0276

Lee, N. E. (2018). Skills for the 21st century: A meta-synthesis of soft-skills and achievement. Canadian Journal of Career Development, 17(2), 73-86. https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/article/view/80

Levkoe, C. Z., Brail, S., & Daniere, A. (2014). Engaged pedagogy and transformative learning in graduate education: A service-learning case study. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 44(3), 68-85. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v44i3.186039

Lund, D. E., & Lee, L. (2015). Fostering cultural humility among pre-service teachers: Connecting with children and youth of immigrant families through service-learning. Canadian Journal of Education, 38(2), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.2307/canajeducrevucan.38.2.10

Ramadhan, H., Lumbanraja, P., & Sinulingga, S. (2021). Analysis of the Effect of Competence and Soft Skill on Employee Performance with Job Satisfaction as Intervening Variable at the Regional Social Services of South Tapanuli Regency. International Journal of Research and Review, 8(8), 290-298. https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20210840

Tremblay, M. (2021). Understanding the dynamic relationship between career plateauing, organizational affective commitment and citizenship behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 129, 103611. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2021.103611

Tripathy, M. (2020). Significance of Soft Skills in Career Development. IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89935

Warrner, J. (2021). Integrating Soft Skills into an Academic Curriculum. American Association for Adult and Continuing Education.