Several people tweeted this week about a study that "surprisingly" showed that so-called "soft" skills like managing relationships and creating an environment of trust are important and valuable in the business world. First off, I'm getting a little bored of these new discoveries that trust and relationships are important. I suppose I'm being a little uppity about it, but com on! Covey's Speed of Trust? Collins' Level 5 Leadership? I feel like this is not news.

On top of that, look how one author framed this study. The first paragraph reads:

Corporate leaders need to know their business, know their customers, and have the ability to execute a strategy successfully. And leaders need to be especially agile to stay current with their business as the pace of change has accelerated so dramatically. Great leadership also requires not only understanding customers' current needs, but accurately predicting future needs as well. This knowledge of business and customers becomes relevant only when leaders also have the ability to execute a strategy that drives growth.

The next paragraph went on to say that while we expect to rate the skills listed above as important to leadership, we may be surprised to find that things like relationships, communication, and trust were important.

Is it just me, or does that paragraph look like it came out of some random business jargon generator from Dilbert? Leadership is about predicting the future? Leadership is about executing "a strategy?" Any strategy? How exactly do you execute a generic strategy? And do you the senior manager execute it? What is the rest of the organization doing?

I guess I should be concerned about my leadership potential because I don't know how, in general, to execute a strategy. And I didn't even realize I would be asked to accurately predict the future. I just know how to help a group get clarity on what drives success, and I'm good at making sure the tough conversations get confronted, and I push to make sure learning happens all the time, and I let people take responsibility for their own work, and I care whether people are happy and I take action on it.

It's not about soft and hard skills. It's about skill and people and change and systems and results.