The Human Skills Every Leader Needs To Be The Best They Can
We all talk about leadership skills, and here I discuss the imperative for human skills, a combination of intelligence we must use to be the best we can be.
Hard Skills
While M.B.A. programs teach our future leaders about hard skills like quantifiable abilities and competencies, this creates a homogenous set of experiences, making interacting with them often alien. One M.B.A. graduate and a successful corporate person told me, “I was constantly told to ‘focus on the people,’ but I was measured on numbers. Incentives and how people are assessed need to be aligned.”
Soft Skills
The soft skills are mostly left for the M.B.A. students to grapple with themselves once they are on the job. They quickly face that life is full of interpersonal and intrapersonal challenges without soft skills.
The lack of fluency in soft skills makes it hard to lead and empower others, let alone yourself. Soft and hard skills go hand in hand. Your hard skills are almost useless when your soft skills are lacking.
Hard Skills + Soft Skills = Human Skills
I consider the so-called soft skills anything but, and I would like to rename them ‘Power skills.’ I have also referred to the integration of soft skills + hard skills as ‘Human skills.’
While hard skills focus primarily on intellectual intelligence (IQ), soft skills integrate all the dimensions of being human — intellectual intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), body intelligence (BQ), and spiritual intelligence (SQ) — so we can be informed and guided not only by the mind, but through our heart wisdom, body wisdom, and our connection to spirit.
The Times Are Calling For Different Kind Of Leaders
The times we live in call for more than being a bright mind and being able to analyze data. The times call for leaders with strong character, integrity, and ethics, kind and caring leaders who transcend their own needs and work for the collective.
This kind of leadership, where we tap into all of the dimensions of our intelligence, is often talked about as leading from the inside out. It can have the most significant impact on our organizations and all our people.
Not to mention that leaders connected to all the dimensions have cultivated an inner life from, among other things, asking age-old questions such as “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” The famous purpose or WHY question.
What are you doing to cultivate all the dimensions of your intelligence and foster inward leadership as much as outward one?
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You may also be interested in the following:
- Unlock Your True Power By Unleashing The Inner Leader
- Why Reinstating The Feminine Is Vital For Innovative Partnerships
- Clearing The Space For The Emerging World
Connect with Rúna:
- Website: www.TruePowerInstitute.com
- Twitter: @RunaBouius
- Facebook: Runa Bouius/TruePowerInstitute
- LinkedIn: Runa Bouius
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About Rúna:
Rúna Bouius is a former CEO and serial entrepreneur from Iceland and the founder of the True Power Institute. As a speaker, author, and mastermind convener, she guides purpose-driven and successful business leaders to amplify their personal and business power, leadership mastery, and well-being.
She is on the vanguard of the new-business paradigm thinking, creating better workplaces, and developing the leaders of the new era. Rúna specializes in facilitating conscious leadership, promoting emerging business and leadership trends, and evolving leaders’ relationships to power — TRUE Power
