CEO Struggle: Bridging Leadership’s Soft Skills Gap

James Lawrence

Soft skills are the linchpin for effective leadership in a dynamic corporate landscape, yet there are CEOs who are struggling with the challenge of bridging the soft skills gap within their leadership teams. 

James Lawrence, the co-founder and CEO at Happy Companies, which improves people, managers and leadership effectiveness, has something to say about it.

His 25 years of building teams and interacting with CEOs on the barriers they face in training managers to communicate through emotional intelligence, has provided him important and valuable insights.

The idea of E.I. is one that is still not universally applied in organizations. One big reason is that it can seem detached from normal business vernacular, as common thought is that it is overly focused on feelings rather than process and monetary outcomes.

Recent research from “a study from CCL (Center for Creative Leadership) — shows that 75 percent of careers derail for reasons relating to emotional competencies,” writes Dan Pontefract at Forbes.

“This includes the inability to handle interpersonal problems, unsatisfactory team leadership during times of difficulty or conflict or the inability to adapt to change or elicit trust. That’s quite the laundry list of misery,” Pontefract adds.

The numbers don’t end there.

“High-performance organizational cultures achieve vastly different business outcomes and profits, with 22% better profitability,” Lawrence explains. “These organizations are also in the top 25% of companies with high employee engagement and achieve significantly better business performance.”

He insists that the emotional component matters, a lot.

“Empathy and solid interpersonal skills are integral to being a great leader,” Lawrence says. “It’s about being self-aware and knowing the impact of your strengths, weaknesses and values on others.”

The people at the top don’t always think about certain responsibilities.

“Leaders need to manage not only others but also themselves,” Lawrence asserts. “You must control or redirect disruptive emotions and impulses to adapt to changing circumstances. Leaders must also be socially aware because they’re working with people who will naturally have emotions.”

There’s a way that this has to be accomplished to prove that leadership is being effective.

“These emotions are correctly navigated through the management of relationships; an aptitude for guiding social interactions and relationships effectively, including inspiring, influencing and developing others in the management process.”

To be frank, Lawrence says, leadership is about a lot more than people normally assume and how they often practice their job.

It is, he declares, “a process of trust, ownership and candor.”

This advisory that certain additional competencies are critically necessary is a worthy conversation.

“For people to do their best work and collaborate as a team, soft skills must be a part of the equation to enable collaboration and productivity,” Lawrence advises, adding that, “Leaders who can effectively communicate and have high emotional intelligence will be in demand to allow for and drive organizational success.”

The term “soft skills” can often be dismissed as optional or less needed in hiring, promotions and behavior. That assumption doesn’t make the competencies less equal in importance and necessity.

“People who are good at empathizing, solving problems creatively and leading others are key to a thriving business,” Lawrence says. “They can handle complex social situations, inspire new ideas and make a big difference in their organizations.”

He goes further in depth on what the evolving thinking entails.

“Soft skills contrast with hard skills, which include technical abilities and how someone could contribute to the company’s bottom line. For this reason, employers have traditionally prioritized hard skills over soft skills,” Lawrence says. “However, the focus has now shifted towards a more holistic approach. Companies now realize interpersonal skills are vital in building connections, reducing conflicts and fostering trust and collaboration.”

Part of establishing, building and having reliable trust in relationships is based in emotional and communication competence to complement technical competence and productivity.

There are at times common and troublesome barriers to implementing emotional intelligence in organizations’ daily practices.

“When I was in my mid-30s, I realized there were blind spots in my leadership. I found this phenomenal coach named John Dolma, who changed my life and revolutionized my leadership approach,” Lawrence recalls.

“I brought John into our company’s leadership circle and introduced him to our seven executives. He didn’t have time to coach all seven, so he coached three and then I found another gentleman to coach a couple of others. I (then) realized coaching was more complicated to scale.

“Having these two coaches in the leadership team was also difficult because they had different methodologies. We had different conversations about how to solve a specific problem, which caused internal friction.”

That wasn’t the only executive stress he encountered, endured and had to solve, he says.

“Another challenge was distilling this to the entire organization,” Lawrence says. “Although we received positive gains, I’m spending two to three grand monthly to coach just a few people.

“Traditional coaching is challenging to democratize to a whole workforce, so everyone is on the same page and receiving the same brand of coaching. This is a considerable barrier to implementing soft skills coaching in organizations with more than a few people.”

He took this as a learning experience and a call to develop improvements.

“This scaling problem is why we built Happy, which delivers impactful coaching to drive productivity and improve organizational culture at scale,” Lawrence says.

“Through AI-powered coaching curated by leadership experts and behavioral science, all employees can receive transformative, personalized coaching and insights into their natural flow of work through the tools they already use.”

He advocates that the result is “a high-value, light-lift tool for HR, managers and leaders tasked to do more with less and significantly impacts employee engagement.”

The impact of profound impact of mastering “soft” skills can be profound on overall organizational success and tangible business outcomes.

“When I began working with a leadership coach, I connected my leadership with business outcomes,” Lawrence say. “I tended to work in certain ways with specific work styles and had much more friction with others.

“I needed to understand the workstyles I had challenges working with for me to be a great leader,” he admits. “This experience allowed me to develop soft skills when interacting with employees to help effectively collaborate with them and drive the organization forward.”

Lawrence has come to a conclusion that not all leaders learn.

“People in a company are a massive competitive advantage,” he says. “Healthy organizational cultures just perform better, have sustainability, are more profitable, have more productivity, and better retention.”

He offers his parting executive advisory:

“Successful leaders and businesses ensure that a people-first approach is more than a mission,” Lawrence says. “Make it a daily practice. By prioritizing soft skills, companies can increase satisfaction, improve culture and foster connections that will enhance business performance.”