Priorities have shifted around the skill set required of today’s leaders. Technical knowledge and commercial capability must be accompanied by softer skills. These include compassion, effective communication, navigating change, digital expertise, motivating a diverse workforce and displaying empathy, amongst others. Traits that are virtually impossible to assess on a resume or job application. These are of course personal traits that define how a person will interact and build relationships with the people around them. Leadership competency frameworks are becoming necessarily more complex, so how do we ensure organisations build systems to support the continuous development of these traits in existing leaders and those they recruit?
This article, written by our colleague in IIC Partners Christine Hayward, draws on recent research and provides more insight under the following three headings:
What does it take to be an effective leader?
What does it mean to have soft skills?
Can soft skills be developed in existing leaders?
Christine Hayward is an Executive Director of IIC Partners, a top ten global executive search organisation. HRM Search Partners is the exclusive Ireland partner. All IIC Partners member firms are independently owned and managed and are leaders in local markets, developing solutions for their client’s organisational leadership and talent management requirements.