Posts Tagged ‘soft skills’
Up and coming managers are always encouraged to display more soft skills rather than hard skills. They’re encouraged to be a team player and nurture and develop their staff. Unfortunately though, new research suggests that most employees taking part in a recent survey, prefer a hard boss over a soft boss, meaning they prefer someone to be tougher rather than lenient on their staff. The study was conducted by the UK Institute of Leadership and Management. People who took part in the survey (some 1500 of them) said they prefer to work for a boss with hard skills who cracks the whip but is successful than a boss with soft skills that fails to deliver the goods at the end of the day.
I can understand where they are coming from to be honest. Cracking the whip as such has never been my way of managing. I prefer to be more of a team player, finding out what makes an individual tick and get them to work on their strengths and weaknesses rather than just telling them the way I want something done. the UK Institute of Leadership and Management poll found that given a choice, most would opt for a hard manager who has real commitment over a soft manager who took an interest in them as people but failed to succeed in the goals set by the company for performance. I cannot see why you can’t have both, be ‘hard’ when needed and ‘soft’ at other times. I have said this in the past and I will say it again and that is that if an employee or a manager for that matter needs someone to constantly be in their face to keep motivated, then they are in the wrong profession.
You can still use soft skills and be focused on results. After all, that’s what matters not how you achieve them. Being a team player in my mind is more important than what your style is.
Posted in Management Articles For Managers | Tags: hard skills, soft skills, team player | 
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