Tips for Mastering Essential Soft Skills

Yesterday, I got to facilitate a workshop at the UT Conference Center about leadership. One of the exercises the group did was to come up with a list ways leaders can continue to grow. While I have added a few things to the list, the most important item here is that as leaders we must continually look to grow in our skills and grow the skills of others. Hope you can take something from this list and add it to your toolbox. ✅ Continuous Learning: Attend leadership development courses, workshops, or seminars to stay updated on the latest management trends and practices. ✅ Mentorship and Coaching: Seek mentorship from experienced leaders or work with a coach to gain feedback and guidance on personal growth areas. ✅ Self-Reflection and Self-Assessment: Regularly evaluate strengths and areas for improvement, using tools like 360-degree feedback, personality/behavioral assessments, or journaling. ✅ Networking and Peer Groups: Join leadership forums, peer groups, or networking organizations to share experiences, gain new perspectives, and discuss challenges. Join a Mastermind group. ✅ Setting Personal Development Goals: Establish specific goals for skill improvement, such as enhancing communication, decision-making, or emotional intelligence. ✅ Reading and Research: Read books, articles, or listen to podcasts focused on leadership, industry trends, or personal development. ✅ Practicing Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Work on empathy, self-awareness, and relationship management to better understand and support team members. ✅ Embracing Feedback: Regularly ask for feedback from team members and peers, and use it constructively to adjust and improve. ✅ Improving Communication Skills: Engage in public speaking, workshops, or activities that enhance communication skills, essential for effective leadership. ✅ Taking on New Challenges: Seek out stretch assignments or new projects that challenge current abilities and expand the skill set. ✅ Delegating and Empowering Others: Practice effective delegation to build trust, empower team members, and improve leadership impact. ✅ Adopting Technology and Innovation: Stay current with technology trends and innovations to lead effectively in a digital world.

I got fired twice because I had poor soft skills. Then, I became VP at Amazon, where my job was more than 80% based on soft skills. This was possible because I stopped being an outspoken, judgmental critic of other people and improved my soft skills. Here are 4 areas you can improve: Soft skills are one of the main things I discuss with my coaching clients, as they are often the barrier between being a competent manager and being ready to be a true executive. Technical skills are important, but soft skills are the deciding factor between executive candidates a lot more than technical skills are. Four “soft skill” areas in which we can constantly improve are: 1) Storytelling skills Jeff Bezos said, “You can have the best technology, you can have the best business model, but if the storytelling isn’t amazing, it won’t matter.” The same is true for you as a leader. You can have the best skills or best ideas, but if you can’t communicate through powerful storytelling, no one will pay attention. 2) Writing Writing is the foundation of clear communication and clear thinking. It is the main tool for demonstrating your thinking and influencing others. The way you write will impact your influence, and therefore will impact your opportunities to grow as a leader. 3) Executive Presence Executive presence is your ability to present as someone who should be taken seriously. This includes your ability to speak, to act under pressure, and to relate to your team informally, but it goes far beyond any individual skill. Improving executive presence requires consistently evaluating where we have space to grow in our image as leaders and then addressing it. 4) Public Speaking As a leader, public speaking is inevitable. In order the get the support you need to become an executive, you must inspire confidence in your abilities and ideas through the way you speak to large, important groups of people. No one wants to give more responsibility to someone who looks uncomfortable with the amount they already have. I am writing about these 4 areas because today’s newsletter is centered around how exactly to improve these soft skills. The newsletter comes from member questions in our Level Up Newsletter community, and I answer each of them at length. I'm joined in the newsletter by my good friend, Richard Hua, a world class expert in emotional intelligence (EQ). Rich created a program at Amazon that has taught EQ to more than 500,000 people! The 4 specific questions I answer are: 1. “How do I improve my storytelling skills?” 2. “What resources or tools would you recommend to get better in writing?” 3. “What are the top 3 ways to improve my executive presence?” 4. “I am uncomfortable talking in front of large crowds and unknown people, but as I move up, I need to do this more. How do I get comfortable with this?” See the newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gg6JXqF4 How have you improved your soft skills?

The hardest part of leading a startup? It's not the strategy. It's the soft skills: In my 25+ years of coaching startup CEOs and tech leaders, I've discovered: Technical brilliance gets you started. Soft skills help you in scaling and growth. 7 Critical Skills that Transform Startup Leaders: ✅ Presence Under Pressure → Stay centered in chaos → Maintain clarity during uncertainty → Lead with calm confidence ✅ Adaptive Communication → Speak to different stakeholders → Translate vision into action → Adjust style as team grows ✅ Strategic Empathy → Understand team burnout → Navigate investor expectations → Balance growth with wellbeing ✅ Decision Clarity → Make quick yet thoughtful calls → Communicate choices clearly → Own and learn from mistakes ✅ Change Navigation → Guide through rapid growth → Help teams embrace evolution → Maintain culture during scale ✅ Energy Management → Sustain long-term drive → Model healthy boundaries → Balance sprint and marathon ✅ Trust Building → Create psychological safety → Build authentic connections → Maintain transparency at scale Because in startups: Your technical skills matter, But your soft skills multiply. Ready to develop these crucial leadership skills? DM me "IMPACT" — Let's explore how to lead with both brilliance and presence.