Leadership
The Hard Sell of Soft Skills
How to lead workers through difficult times.
Posted February 4, 2025 Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
Key points
- Increasingly, leaders are being challenged to manage the emotional responses of their employees.
- Being present for employees during times of crisis does not require training in emotional intelligence.
- Leaders can have as much impact on their employees during times of crisis as trained counselors.
“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” — General Norman Schwarzkopf
Even before the recent upheavals impacting workplaces across the country, leaders have been challenged with how to address employees having difficult emotional responses while at work. As an Employee Assistance professional, I receive calls weekly from supervisors questioning how they should respond to events such as the sudden death of an employee, an employee who has a terminal illness, employees who have witnessed a traumatic event while at work, etc. Very often the reflexive request is to send counselors to the worksite. In some cases, after a complete assessment of the situation, this is the appropriate response; however, in many cases the recommendation is that the support initially be provided by those in charge.
There was a time when managers did not delve into the emotional lives of their employees. Issues of stress, grief, and mental-health challenges were avoided for fear of crossing boundaries and making employees uncomfortable. Both a generational shift in attitudes towards mental health and wellness, and the realization that personal problems often show up at work and impact a company’s bottom line, have led to a search for leaders who possess what have been called “soft skills” and/or “emotional intelligence” (EQ). Both cover such a wide range of possible interactions—EQ has five core components and soft skills anywhere four 4 to 10 depending on one's definition—that trainings in these areas often leave many feeling professionally deficient, if not shamed.
I long for the day when we simply talked about leaders having good “people skills” and there were only two basic areas:
- Do you know how to do your job? = Technical skills
- Do you know how to assist others in doing their jobs? = People skills
When contacted by a leader regarding employees' reactions to emotional experiences, I always begin by assessing the leader’s response to the event. I’m interested to know how they are coping, what their typical style of leadership, is and how comfortable they are in the emotional realm. We then move on to what I’ve found to be the crucial element in assessing the best response: How well do they know their people, and have they had a direct experience with how they are coping with the current incident?
At this point, I will acknowledge the desire to have a trained professional counselor available, but I assure them that, based on years of experience and my work as a psychological first responder, in most cases the people employees want to talk to in the aftermath of a high-impact event is, in rank order:
- Friends and/or family
- Their direct supervisors
- Coworkers
- A counselor
I’m aware that the request to have a counselor on-site is often the result of a leader feeling ill-equipped to manage the situation, either due to never having confronted it before or to some self-assessed deficiency in the area: As one manger recently told me, “I wouldn’t know what to say.”
Regardless of whether I will send a counselor or go the worksite myself, I will coach the leader in the following to keep his or her employees from having to wait for a professional to arrive to offer assistance:
- Be seen. To the degree possible, leaders need to have an active presence during emotionally challenging times, even if that presence must be virtual.
- Communicate. As soon as possible send a clear message as to what happened and how they are going to support their staff. Protracted silence will only increase rumors and gossip.
- Offer tangible comfort. Sending food, drinks, or other tokens of appreciation are good ways to support people feeling a sense of loss with no immediate means of expressing the loss.
- Don’t pathologize normal behaviors. Crying, confusion, anger, and feeling numb are all normal reactions to abnormal events. Sending a counselor in too soon suggests that there is something wrong with these expressions. If a leader is comfortable sitting with them, the employee may be as well.
- Practice what you preach. Often leaders go to extremes to comfort employees and so they exhaust themselves emotionally and physically. Seeking support from colleagues, mentors, or professionals trained in responding to workplace disasters is essential in setting a good example.
As increasing numbers of people are experiencing emotionally disturbing events related to the workplace, it is incumbent on those who lead them to be prepared to act. Those who feel their emotional intelligence (EQ) ranks below the norm, or that they have a hard time with soft skills, can take comfort in the knowledge that employees should still appreciate honest and genuine leadership. Once leaders understand that their role is not to heal their employees but to acknowledge their pain and provide resources, they will find that these skills are not hard or soft; they are human skills available to everyone.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) are able to provide support to employees impacted by tragic events by offering both preventative and response services.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.