The 12 essential soft skills for an executive

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Managing a team involves organizing work, evaluating employees, motivating them and uniting them around a common project, but also managing conflict. Theexecutive function therefore requires certain behavioral skills, the famous soft skills, as opposed to technical skills, the hard skills.

The soft skills can be innate, but are mostly acquired through experience, and sometimes, through training.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of qualities expected by companies.

1. Leadership

A leader has the ability to initiate action with enthusiasm and conviction, and is able to draw those around him/her along with him/her. leadership also means knowing how to unite your team around defined objectives and express your appreciation for the work accomplished.

2. Empathy

To fully understand your employees, you need to be able to put yourself in their shoes. This involves, among other things, showing understanding, benevolence, and adapting your behavior to the situations encountered.

3. Listening

A good manager takes the time to listen to his employees in all circumstances. Indeed, listening enables us to take the other person into account, to meet his or her expectations, and to spot any difficulties. What's more, it helps create arelationship of trust.

4. Pedagogy

While your employees are recruited for their skills, they don't know, at first glance, the company culture, the ways of working, the specifics of each department. This is why, whenonboarding, it's necessary to accompany them, to explain certain processes, certain habits... with patience, and by placing things in their context. In the same way, the introduction of achange in technology or organization needs to be explained by the manager to his or her employees, even experienced ones.

5. Communication

Top-down and horizontal communication is essential for involving your teams. Top-down torelay the information exchanged in executive committee, horizontal to maintain dialogue and cohesion between each team member. This can be done informally, but also during weekly meetings.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list.

6. Problem solving

Executives are expected to take responsibility and provide solutions to problems: unhappy customers, organizational difficulties, team conflicts, delivery failures etc.

7. Adaptability

Managing a motley crew, each with their own way of doing things, personalities with varied temperaments, requires great adaptability. In the same way, being an executive also means knowing how to deal with different working methods, whether face-to-face, remote, on a multi-site or telecommuting basis.

8. Initiative

Executives are expected to be drivers, proposers. To do this, he or she must be able to analyze and take a step back, before being able to project himself or herself onto new projects and anticipate future objectives.

9. Decision-making

A manager needs to be able to decide and make a decision if necessary, in the event of disagreement. This is also what his colleagues expect of him, since he is their hierarchical referent, and drives the actions to be implemented.

10. Negotiation skills

Whether in relations with customers and suppliers or with employees, an executive is regularly required to negotiate, and therefore to demonstrate diplomacy and relational flexibility.

11. Ethics

Ethics are a determining factor in establishing atrusting relationship. Thus, an executive must act with loyalty towards decisions issued by management, as well as in the management of his or her various collaborators. This also implies that, to be respected, he must also set an example.

12. Availability

Close proximity to team members is important to achieve a close-knit team. In this sense, making yourself available to exchange with your collaborators is essential. This enables dialoguing about the difficulties encountered, but also communicating about positive results, with the effect of strengthening the cohesion and confidence of the team in its manager.