Success is derived from good leadership. At work, at home or wherever people make decisions. The times are over when poor leadership could get away with everything (or at least I hope so). In the early months of 2021, the term “The Great Resignation” became popular due to the economic trend of employees actively resigning. Who can blame them? We received so little security and appreciation in times of great uncertainty. People are less likely to put up with everything, in particular, unfair wages and profound job dissatisfaction. 

But what does it take to make a modern workplace more attractive? In both the private and professional setting people increasingly look for companies which reflect their personal values. The tables have turned and job seekers now have more decision-making power than ever before. That’s really, really good considering that we spend 40 hours (!, or more) of our precious days at our jobs. Not only is it a lot of time, but it may not be the most effective way of working. Studies have shown that reduced weekly work hours can get the same job done, and at the same time improve the performance of a business.

A healthy balance between work and personal life should be non-negotiable. Creating a healthy work-life balance is an effective way of creating more sustainable workplaces. So what does it take to create more harmonious and sustainable economies? It’s not only about the job itself but also the people we work with. Gossip, bullying and discrimination is prevalent in workplaces where poor leadership is paired with unsatisfied employees. To create socially sustainable workplaces, soft skills come into play. I want to show you how this can look in the next chapter. 

Why does Sustainability require special soft skills?

Survival of the fittest is a weird way of making business. Competition is forcing many businesses to make decisions – at the cost of people and the planet – to achieve greater profit. The current economic model which is prevalent in the majority of countries is a huge beast, functioning without rhyme or reason. It is far from being resilient and we are currently experiencing its worldwide effect in the form of growing inflation. An unstable economy is far from what we need when it comes to sustainable development.  

This has been recognised by different companies and they are changing their work ethics. Soft skills are one sustainable option as they can diversify positive outcomes in the workplace, like improved job satisfaction and increased productivity. Additionally, they contribute to acknowledging the equality of different characters. Trend words such as integrity, teamwork, collaboration etc. are communicated to create a sense of belonging, to want to stay. But they have to be properly executed and be more reality than an illusion.

During a workshop in my first corporate role, we discussed the many benefits soft skills bring to the team. I was confused. Attributes such as listening, collaboration, respect and kindness were taught as soft skills which employees should practise at work. 

This seemed strange to me and I remember asking myself: “That’s not the norm? How odd…”

Different hard and soft skills

So what are soft skills exactly? They are characteristics that enable someone to interact effectively with other people. Instead of simply focusing on hard skills which reflect competencies gained through education and training, soft skills improve our overall experience with other employees, our bosses, and customers. Most soft skills relate to character traits or interpersonal skills. Technical, analytical, management, or marketing skills belong to the category of hard skills. 

Why are soft skills being praised as having a greater potential to contribute to sustainable development? The truth lies again somewhere in the middle. Soft skills enable us to see the bigger picture and to deal with details. Hard skills let us understand the technical side of things, but soft skills highlight the interactions and interdependencies within a field. It’s interesting that soft skills have been neglected for a long time even though the economy is based on human interactions.

What are some of the soft skills which support Sustainability?

Through my research, I stumbled across different soft skills and I picked the ones for you which I see as most suitable to support a Sustainability Mindset. 

Seven Soft Skills

Collaboration – Open-Mindedness, Transparency and Communication

Creating a sense of a common bond can work wonders in achieving goals. Internal and external collaboration is important to improve team dynamics as well as customer service. Guaranteeing honest collaboration, transparency and clear communication within the team is mandatory to avoid misinterpretation and frustration. Acting in concert builds trust and allows more acceptance of diversity and inclusion within a team. 

To increase collaboration, communicating effectively and in a respectful way is the cornerstone. The be-all and end-all of successful collaboration is communication. Communicating clear goals, respectfully communicating disagreements and communicating inconsistencies in long-term thinking are a few focus points to manage relationships. 

We work in hypercomplex environments and mastering the soft skill of collaboration can work wonders. 

Communication – Listening, Emotional Control and Engagement

Surprise, but we are not alone in this world. Every day we are surrounded by other people who have to carry their burdens of life. No one is ever an exception and everyone has the right to be treated with respect and integrity. Communication between humans took a weird turn. We communicate but we can’t transmit our messages properly, resulting in frustration and misunderstanding. Those bad smartphones, am I right?

Successful communication as a soft skill is based on listening, emotional control and engagement. It shouldn’t be difficult to be clear in our messaging and polite in our attitude, but as mentioned before, we all have our burdens which affect our abilities to different degrees. Being a little more understanding but also not letting yourself be undermined within a conversation is an act in itself. But the more people learn to effectively communicate the more potential there is for mutual relationships.

Another part of communication is content creation or storytelling. As you might have read on my home and about page, I’m relatively unsatisfied with how Sustainability is communicated. Instead of highlighting the opportunities to create a better world, the media narrative is stuck in disaster stories. Pointing fingers at each other won’t make the difference, it only shifts the attention away from what needs to be done in a most sustainable way.

Systems Thinking – Interdependency, Complexity and Questioning the Status Quo

We live in a very complex and interconnected world, this is no secret. Speaking of hypercomplex environments doesn’t make it easier to understand what’s actually going on. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to bring some clarity into the chaos. The basis of developing your systems thinking ability is to understand the interdependencies of the decisions you make with the outside world and acknowledge its complexity.

I came across the following graphic during my master’s studies. It is one of my favourites. It shows the global food system and the many factors which influence it. Knowing every single part of a system is not necessary. What is necessary is to understand the interconnectedness and complexity involved. That one decision can have an impact across the whole system. As you can see, the impact can be tiny or immense.

The Global Food System spectacularly visualised

Getting information from multiple perspectives brings you one step closer to understanding the big picture. Consider all the people, resources, and environments which are impacted by a decision you make. That’s why it’s crucial in the Sustainability space to consider as many entities as possible, to make the best possible decision.

Another important point in regards to system thinking is to question the status quo. Just because something has been done this way for a while doesn’t mean that it should continue this way. Especially, when the negative impacts are bigger than the positive ones. Change is good, change is inevitable. And we need a lot of change to improve our probability of survival.

Problem-Solving – Observation, Analysis and Flexibility

Without problems we wouldn’t need any solutions and to be honest, this would be quite boring and unchallenging. The next soft skill I want to introduce to you is problem-solving. As already mentioned we live in hypercomplex environments where we are surrounded by a huge diversity of people. Decisions we make in one part of the world can have a significant impact on the other side of the world. 

For effective problem-solving, it is extremely important to minimise negative outcomes along the decision-impact chain as much as possible. Traits to become a better problem solver are very simple: observing, listening, analysing and acknowledging that you only know half of the truth. Moreover, innovative and creative thinking also come into play when developing new solutions. Most important is the ability to see the bigger picture and be aware of different influences my decision can cause.

No one has to be a mastermind to make sustainable decisions. Seeing opportunities which arise from a problem, and how one decision can evoke multiple outcomes is the first step to becoming a better problem solver. One step at a time: stop, listen, analyse, and then decide. 

Did you achieve a greater impact than you imagined? Awesome! You’re on the right track.

Emotional Intelligence – Mindfulness, Self-Awareness and Humour

It made me very happy that emotional intelligence is on the rise across the world. It’s a soft skill with big potential to make our world a better place. Key characteristics are empathy, mindfulness and self-awareness. I believe if every person was a tiny bit more self-aware about their actions and impacts on others, we would have a lot less problems.

Emotional intelligence supports our critical thinking to examine an issue in different ways. It enables us to look beyond our own bubble (world or reality) and take other perspectives like livelihoods, cultures, character traits, etc. into account. Personal well-being is strongly linked to emotional intelligence and can be practised through mindfulness and curiosity. 

Another characteristic which I find personally very important is humour. Humour is my number one character strength and  I’ve realised that I’m a Humour Vampire. For everyone who hasn’t watched the comedy series What We Do In The Shadows, there is an Energy Vampire who feeds by draining people of energy and joy. On the contrary, I get energy from making people smile or laugh. 

Recognising your character traits opens doors to a more content and fulfilled life. It helps you find your place in this wonderful world. Where do you get your happy energy from?

Kindness – Compassion, Gratitude and Love

Sometimes I wonder how people can be so unkind to others. It simply doesn’t fit my worldview that some act like entitled brats. I’m a kind person but I can get very annoyed, especially when I see unjustified behaviour which harms others. Kindness is one of those soft skills which can be seen as weak in the business world, and is used as a means of offloading work onto nice people. 

Kindness shouldn’t be exploited but rewarded. Kind people tend to carry a bigger burden covered in compassion, generosity and empathy. All important traits to influence the world positively. I just have to mention Robin Williams here and you know what I mean. Love and kindness go hand in hand and increasingly we shift away from a stereotypical two partnership love to a world love. Love doesn’t know boundaries. 

Be kind to people who sit in the same boat, and use your gratitude and positivity as a shield against those who want to bring you down. Viva la kindness!

Imagination – Curiosity, Playfulness and Innovation

The last soft skill I want to introduce you to is a fun one! It might not be one which you will often find mentioned in the business world. Without imagination, our world would be pretty dull and boring. Our imagination helps us see things in a better light and find the potential to improve anything we want. Curiosity and playfulness are characteristics which support our well-being and enable us to see things from a different perspective. A better one.

To work something out in a playful way increases the chances of making better decisions, because making decisions with a positive mind contributes to positive outcomes. Our world has for too long been governed by egomaniacs and impostors. Why not try to put people into leadership positions who know how to enjoy life in a non-harmful and sustainable way?

We need more dreamers, innovators, motivators, storytellers, adventurers and so on to create a world of wonders.

There are many more soft skills out there but the seven I gathered for you are a good basis to create a more sustainable world, not only at work. People, in general, are really nice and if we increase our soft skill abilities, we will be able to be awesome human beings at any time. Contributing to a socially sustainable world, we need all the (soft) skills we can get.