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Why Soft Skills Are so Difficult to Teach

By National Soft Skills Association 20 Comments

A lot has happened in the field of soft skills over the last few years. Awareness of the need for employees to possess soft skills such as attitude, communication, critical thinking, and professionalism, to name a few, has begun to reach a fevered pitch. High school career and technology education (CTE) programs as well as post-secondary institutions have identified the need to offer training in soft skills. Many programs have taken the approach of trying to integrate soft skills training with hard skills training. On the surface, integrating the two sounds like a good idea, however I wonder what the results of such training will provide. The reason for my doubt is that just teaching the concepts of soft skills is not good enough, you have to go deeper.

The Foundation Blocks of Soft Skills

There are hidden skills or competencies that are needed as the as foundation blocks upon which soft skills can be taught. These necessary building blocks are known as emotional intelligence or EQ. EQ is a learned ability to identify, explain, understand and express human emotions in healthy and productive ways. Without these foundation blocks, a learner’s ability to understand and to use soft skills is very limited.

Here is how this works:

In education, the targeted skill being taught is soft skills. The next step is to identify the soft skills competencies that need to be taught. Simple, right? What is missing are the foundation blocks that the soft skills competencies are built upon. Those foundation blocks are EQ competencies.

The foundation blocks of Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are actually social skills and cover how to interact with other people and present oneself in an acceptable manner. It includes such topics as interpersonal skills, controlling your emotions, socializing at work, networking, responding to conflict and helping customers.

The core EQ foundation skills needed in order to develop these interpersonal skills are self-esteem, interpersonal awareness, empathy and supportive environment.

• Self-esteem is how positively you view yourself. It is a perceived level of personal worth and is the most important EQ competency of them all for developing positive relationships. Contrary to what the current experts say about self-esteem (they think it does not exist), it is a key competency in interpersonal relationships, for it dictates how people might feel about themselves in social situations. If people feel good about themselves, they also demonstrate positive feelings about the others around them.

• Interpersonal awareness first starts with intrapersonal awareness or awareness of self. Once people become aware of themselves they can then become aware of others. Awareness of others also requires a good understanding how others might be responding to them. Many people on the autism spectrum struggle with this concept.

• Empathy is the cornerstone of EQ. Empathy covers how to sense, understand, and accept another person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Empathy is a primary characteristic of skilled communicators and a key aspect in interpersonal or social skills.

• Supportive environment is the extent to which friends, family or peers have impact on an individual’s achievement and how they can positively encourage people in achieving their personal goals and improving relationships.

As you can see here, there is a lot more to the soft skill of interpersonal skills than meets the eye. Remember you cannot teach soft skill competencies while ignoring the underlying necessary EQ competencies.

Filed Under: Research & Publications

About the Author

National Soft Skills Association™ (NSSA) is a national clearing house on past and present research and to identify the best practices within the soft skills field.

Comments

  1. s.gnanapragasam pragasam says

    September 8, 2019 at 9:45 am

    intra personal skills such as managing the mind , health and happiness is a predominant foundation in building soft skills.

    Reply
  2. aryne says

    October 1, 2019 at 8:18 am

    good article.thanks

    Reply
  3. nassim says

    May 15, 2020 at 5:50 am

    Merci pour ce très bon billet introductif

    Reply
  4. nassim says

    May 16, 2020 at 9:47 am

    All the information which have you shared with us is very useful

    Reply
  5. simon says

    May 31, 2020 at 8:44 am

    thanks for sharing such a nice post

    Reply
  6. simon says

    May 31, 2020 at 8:47 am

    fantastique article Merci pour le partage.

    Reply
  7. Alan Jennings says

    January 21, 2021 at 3:38 am

    I really like this post

    Reply
  8. ferahtia.FS says

    March 21, 2021 at 4:48 am

    very good article thanks for sharing

    Reply
  9. Text Creator says

    April 28, 2021 at 8:31 am

    Thank for sharing this, I really enjoyed reading it 🙂

    Reply
  10. ferahtia.FS says

    May 24, 2021 at 3:11 am

    Very interesting post. This is my first time visit here. I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. Thanks for the post!

    Reply
  11. safia says

    May 30, 2021 at 4:48 am

    I like to follow your blog, hopefully the better your posts are, so that I am more comfortable to come back next time.
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    Reply
  12. ferahtia.FS says

    June 7, 2021 at 4:22 am

    merci pour vos efforts

    Reply
  13. brahim d staps says

    July 5, 2021 at 12:25 pm

    Thank you for these informations

    Reply
  14. brahim d staps says

    July 6, 2021 at 1:39 am

    Nice post thaanks

    Reply
  15. rama says

    October 20, 2021 at 7:56 am

    Your writing style has been surprised me. Thank you,very nice article.‎

    Reply
  16. rama says

    November 6, 2021 at 5:26 am

    thanks

    Reply

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