The concept of soft skill development isn’t new, but the formalization of emotional acumen in business curricula at the executive level is relatively fresh, Edmondson, the professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, and others in the space said. Further, the emphasis and enthusiasm among executives and development professionals to study and perfect soft skills is distinct from the command-and-control culture of leadership common during the majority of the last half-century — for example, Barsade’s exchange with the bank executive.
To some experts, a few commonalities explaining the shift toward soft stand out.
First, business in 2012 moving into 2013 is far more complex, fluid and interconnected across geographies and virtual networks. Technical skills have grown less static and reliable, placing an increased emphasis for executive leaders on those skills considered soft, while those they lead focus more intently on technical skills. “I could teach you the latest new way to model cash flows, and there might be a different way to do it next week,” Edmondson said.
Modern leadership is also less about being an expert in a technical skill area and more about creating context for others to learn, become the experts and then execute quickly. Edmondson said creating context requires leaders to motivate and influence others to perform at their best. How that is accomplished is largely emotionally driven.
Second, more research has been done in the last half-century, and even the last 15 years, examining the link between organizational performance and emotion. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author of numerous books, including Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence, made waves in the mid-1990s with his work in arguing for the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ), which discounts IQ as the sole measure of someone’s ability.
Goleman said a leader’s ability to understand and manage people’s emotions has always been more important than technical capacity. With a strong EQ, great leaders can sustain influence over time and change, even if their IQ is average.
“There’s a direct relationship between our emotional state and our mental state,” Goleman said. “Emotions are what determine what we can perform at our best. So from the get-go, there’s a hard-wired case for making sure people can manage emotions, and emotional intelligence means being intelligent about emotions. That, I would argue, is as hard a skill as knowing how to write software.”
Business leaders, however, might be moving backward in their EQ development, Goleman said. The proliferation of mobile devices, social media and virtual communication has resulted in less face-to-face personal and professional interaction. This is a perturbing trend, Goleman said, considering face-to-face interaction is a vital component for strong EQ development.
The expanding boundaries of business also have heightened the importance of soft skills in leadership. Sydney Finkelstein, associate dean for executive education and a professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, said globalization has hastened the emphasis on soft skills development for executives.
In a class of 30 leaders in Tuck’s executive education program, it wouldn’t be surprising to have as many as 25 different nationalities in the room, Finkelstein said. The same can be said for many corporate offices. Understanding how to bring together diverse groups in a cohesive manner requires leaders to be privy to emotional and behavioral tendencies across cultures.
Experience is also a factor. By the time individuals reach the executive level they’re likely well-versed in the hard, technical skills of their craft, thanks to undergraduate business and graduate MBA programs and on-the-job learning. However, Finkelstein said most aren’t conditioned to truly embrace advanced soft skill development until they reach the executive level — which is why courses firmly focused on the subject are more common in executive education. Including soft skill development at the undergraduate level in business schools or earlier would be premature because students don’t yet have the business experience to base that development on, Finkelstein said.
It seems emotions have become anything but disruptive in executive education.
“The bottom line is emotions are information,” Wharton’s Barsade said. “And if you don’t use that information, you’re playing with one hand behind your back.”
Soft skills are at the core of more fluid business practices.