Hire Ground

Soft Skills: The Hidden Force Behind Successful Teams

• Joe Motes

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Soft skills have emerged as the true differentiator between mediocre and exceptional teams. Beyond technical prowess and impressive credentials, these human-centered capabilities communication, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and self-awareness determine whether organizations merely survive or consistently thrive in today's complex work environment.

The landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years. While hard skills still matter, they're increasingly taking a backseat to qualities that can't be quantified on a resume. As host Joe Motes explains, "Hard skills get you hired, but it's the soft skills that keeps you employed." This principle becomes even more critical in remote and hybrid settings where team cohesion depends on effective communication, emotional regulation, and conflict resolution skills.

What makes soft skills particularly valuable is their authenticity they cannot be faked in interviews or taught quickly after hiring. While technical training can upskill someone in weeks, developing the ability to navigate workplace challenges with grace, receive feedback constructively, or lead without ego takes years of practice and self-reflection. This reality transforms soft skills from a cultural nicety into a strategic business imperative directly tied to retention, productivity, and profitability.

The episode offers practical guidance for identifying these elusive qualities during the hiring process. Listen for candidates' storytelling abilities, their self-awareness when discussing past challenges, and how they maintain emotional control during interviews. Role-playing scenarios and questions about team dynamics provide valuable insights into how candidates might handle common workplace situations. For organizations looking to strengthen existing teams, the key lies in modeling these behaviors from the top down creating psychological safety, making feedback a two-way street, and demonstrating that "culture is caught, not just taught."

Ready to transform your hiring approach and build teams that truly last? Subscribe to Higher Ground for more conversations that push recruiting forward, and connect with the host on LinkedIn for ongoing insights about modern staffing success.

Connect with me on LinkedIn (1) Joe Motes, Executive MBA | LinkedIn

Interested in joining this show? Contact Hire Ground at hiregroundpodcast@gmail.com.

Intro/Outro:

Welcome to Hire Ground, the podcast that puts hiring quality above all else and elevates the way we think about staffing. In a world where the competition for top talent is fierce and the margin for hiring error is razor thin, we're bringing you the best in recruitment strategy, talent insights and real-world best practices that actually work, from sourcing and selection to candidate experience and team building. We tackle what it takes to staff smarter, lead stronger and build workplaces that win. Looking for that talent-finding edge, you've just found the higher ground. Now here's your host, Joe Motes.

Joe:

Higher Ground. Now here's your host, joe Motes. Welcome back everyone to another episode of Higher Ground, the podcast, where we cut through the noise and get honest about what it takes to build strong, sustainable teams in today's world of work. I am your host, joe Motes, and today I am talking about a topic that's really reshaping hiring across every industry, every role and every level. And that is why do soft skills matter more than ever? And soft skills is not just a buzzword. It's the difference between hiring someone who checks the boxes, the pre-established boxes, and someone who actually can move the needle, show progress and execute on strategies, and between a team that what's the difference between a team that survives and one that thrives? And in a market the markets that we're in that's constantly shifting, soft skills aren't just nice to have, they are mission critical. So let's unpack this. So let's talk about, first, the shift from really resumes to well relationships. And let me start here, and for the better part of maybe the last decade or more, we have been obsessed with credentials, degrees, years of experience, certifications, technical fluencies, and don't get me wrong, those things do matter. But here is what I've learned throughout my career as a leader, as someone in the talent acquisition space. Who hires people? Hard skills get you hired, but it's the soft skills that keeps you employed. It's that fit post-COVID hiring landscape. If we think back, we all have watched teams fall apart, not because they lack technical talent, but because they lacked emotional intelligence, empathy, adaptability. I believe we are in a work culture where priorities are shifting now and generation or Gen Z values purpose over a paycheck that's what it appears and boomers those that are out there are mentoring remotely and teams these days seem to be more global and fast paced. And we're also and this is something I'm excited to see is we're redefining what the term diversity in the workplace really is. Right, it's. For so long it's been about race and ethnicity and I think that's important when it applies and there's, you know, underrepresentation due to whatever malice reasons. But a truly diverse team is a team that has different tools in their toolkit, right, and all those tools are used to build, you know, upon each other and you know they have different backgrounds, different experiences. They grew up in different areas, went to different schools. They bring something different to the table and, you know, I'm really excited to see that shift and that investment by organizations.

Joe:

And, going back to soft skills. It's soft skills, you know. It's communication, it's adaptability, it's self-awareness. That is, to me, what's holding the modern team, if you will, together, or it's tearing it apart when it's missing, and you can identify this pretty quickly. I'm sure many of us have been on teams that fell apart and we've been on teams that have thrived and nothing could, you know, wedge anything between them.

Joe:

So if we're defining what soft skills are and why they are so hard to fake, I think that soft skills I think it's best understood, or they're best understood they're really just human skills, right, things like communication, active listening, conflict resolution I talked about emotional intelligence earlier Time and stress management. I think that's a big one. Teamwork and leadership presence, and leadership presence without that ego and the need to be right all the time. You know, lead in an inclusive way where you are building the plane together if you will, and that it's not. You're not pushing my way or the highway type leadership, and here's the real truth.

Joe:

Soft skills are impossible to fake and even harder to teach late in the game, if you can teach them at all. You can upskill someone on a new technology system or tool in a few weeks or a few days. But you know, teaching someone to navigate conflict without escalating or without falling apart, to receive feedback without shutting down, that takes time and not everyone, let's be honest, is coachable. So hiring for soft skills means hiring for the long-term success of your teams, your stakeholders, your clients and ultimately, your overall culture of your company and, ultimately, your overall culture of your company.

Joe:

So why are soft skills so business critical? Now, this isn't just about being a nice culture topic or about virtue grandstanding. Soft skills are directly tied to retention, productivity and even and this is something that so many CEOs miss overall profitability. So let's break it down a little further and what I mean by being business critical, and why so. If you think about remote and hybrid teams, those type teams require better communications. You don't have really a hallway to run into each other and fix any kind of miscommunications. Teams now succeed or fail based on how well they write, how well they listen, ask and clarify.

Joe:

Culture fit matters more in small, fast-moving teams. One person who's combative, closed off or emotionally volatile, that one hire can unravel months of progress and team building. I've seen that happen both in the corporate world and even when I was in the military. It's very important that you have strong teams when you deploy or go overseas or have a big field assignment. Deploy or go overseas or have a big field assignment Leadership pipelines can depend also on soft skills. We have too many managers and, in my opinions, not enough leaders, and leadership today should be about influence and clarity and coaching, not just task management. Or I've put in my time, I went to this Ivy League school, I've achieved this, so you have to listen to me. And that starts with hiring people who can connect, who can engage and even inspire and not just execute right, Not just be robots to be kind of feared and intimidated by Kind of. The last thing here is or high turnover often comes down to really emotional friction and I used to think that people accepted jobs and positions similar to how I used to and that was based off how much work-life balance was I going to get and how much compensation was I going to be able to earn in that position. But as I've progressed in my career, especially over the past couple roles that I've had, I have started looking at things a lot different. Right, and when we think about hiring for soft skills, we spend so much time trying to solve retention through things like compensation and titles and things like that. But often people leave because they feel unseen, unheard or undervalued All problems that stem from poor soft skills in the leadership realm, realm, Real bottom line here is soft skills protect your hiring investment overall. So to kind of put this in play.

Joe:

I want to talk about a interview that kind of changed my way of thinking about things. And well, I was interviewing these two candidates I believe they were two nurse practitioner candidates and one on. Well, on paper really they were identical, Same relative experience and education, and, you know, both came highly recommended, all great. But when we got into the interview, one candidate stood out above the other, and not because of what she did, but really how she kind of thought. You know, she said one of the things that she had learned is that how you talk to a patient's family, how you talk to a patient's family in a difficult time and their life matters just as much as what medications you prescribe and I never really thought about that. And one is his pain, and she said the other builds trust, is what she said. She talked about supporting the facilities, CNAs during COVID surges, how she brought donuts on double shifts just to boost morale, and how she coached an anxious grad through their first critical code or code, or is it code blue, I can't remember Code red, something where they, the person crashes or what have you. But you know that's leadership, that's, that's emotional intelligence and that is, you know, retention wrapped in empathy.

Joe:

No-transcript. So let's put this into some practical play. And what to look for when hiring soft skills, how can we identify them? And when I am training recruiters or hiring managers to well recruit, right, If I'm giving some kind of training or education, you know some of the things that that I try to tell them to look for. Uh, there's a list of pretty specific things, but the first one is listen for storytelling, right, Soft skills come out in how people reflect and kind of think back to time.

Joe:

You know, use those behavioral type questions. Tell me about a time you had to give difficult, difficult feedback and if they're stumbling or it seems like they're making something up, you can kind of identify that stumbling or it seems like they're making something up, you can kind of identify that. Well, maybe they haven't had to do that a lot. Of course, if it's not nerves, you should be able to identify the difference between them. You can also ask things like describe a team conflict and how you handle it, especially if you have a large team. Well, large or small team conflict is going to happen at some point in your team and if there's any soft skill that you want everyone to have on your team. It's the ability to successfully and professionally deal with conflict.

Joe:

And the other thing you want to look for is notice their self-awareness. If they're answering your questions and they blame others for every challenge, that's a red flag. Look for the candidate who owns mistakes and talk about what they learned and this is something that's really benefited me a lot in my career is is is my ability to say you know what? Yeah, I, I messed that up and you know. Learn from it. Um, if you can recover from it, recover from it and you know, get on the right path, but don't consistently blame others for your frustrations and things like that. And look for those candidates that do, and I would say, run from those, because they're going to be a nightmare to work with.

Joe:

Also, you want to pay attention to the energy and the emotional control. Do they get defensive or do they stay calm when you press them? You know other things are. You could ask what your last team would say about working with you, and this is when I'm leading a team. This is a question that I hope someday all, or everyone that has worked for me, is asked by somewhere as someone, and they have a very positive response. And if you look at that as a leader, as one of your soft skills, to kind of have that perspective. It'll help you in leading your team and treating them well and building that collaborative, cohesive team.

Joe:

But what I'm talking about here is really this type of question disarms people. It pulls out their emotional brand, if you will. I think another thing is really role-playing, though a realistic, challenging scenario their way, Not like a brain teaser, but something like your teammate missed a deadline. That affects your work individually or specifically. How would you, how do you handle that? Right? And their first instinct is often the truest reflection of their EQ. So there's, there's all kinds of ways that you know during the interview you can, you can look for for soft skills and you know, out of the ones that I've talked about, I really pay attention to energy and emotional control. I think that that is a big identifier of someone and who they are and how they handle different situations. I love a good storyteller, right? Someone that can, you know, look back on their life and reflect what they've done and how far they've come and how they reacted in situations. That's being very self-aware. I think that's important.

Joe:

So it's not just about hiring for soft skills, we have to build them into our teams as well. So how do we develop these soft skills into our organizations? I think this means that we have to make feedback a two-way street. We have to be investing in coaching and not just compliance training. A lot of times, talent development teams get bogged down with all of the compliance stuff, but the biggest part of their job, what they should be spending 80%, in my opinion, time on is having successful talent development and coaching programs to build that internal talent and that internal bench.

Joe:

This is also about creating psychological safety. That's been a big buzzword over the years in the workplace, and this is just basically creating an environment that people want to come into, that they feel that they can be safe, in that they can grow. And if you really want to know what I feel the secret is is soft skills grow fastest when they're modeled from the top. And if your leaders can't say I was wrong or what do you think, your team won't either. I assure you.

Joe:

Remember this Culture is caught, it's not just taught, and I truly believe that. So here's what I want to leave you with. And we can teach tech, we can train systems. We can, you know, teach workflows and processes, the ability to adapt, to de-escalate, to lead with clarity. That is the glue that holds teams together when things get hard because things are going to get tough, there are going to be days where everything goes wrong and it's going to be the strength of that team and it's not going to be their understanding of sales force that pulls you through. It's going to be their ability to rally everybody together. It's going to be their ability to communicate well, to manage their emotions and their responses. It's going to be the soft skills that will sustain them and sustain your team.

Joe:

The hard skills are going to change. You know, and let's be honest, work is hard, leadership's hard, and growth is hard and messy. Growth is hard and messy. So if you want to build something that truly, truly lasts and this is the point of a whole quick chat here hire for humanity. Do not get bogged down by the fancy words on the resumes, the flashy pedigrees. Hire for, yes, can they do the job, but also what value you can get out of their soft skills.

Joe:

So if this episode kind of hit home for you as a leader or as a recruitment professional, be sure to share it with a friend or a colleague or your hiring manager.

Joe:

This is a conversation we, in my opinion, all need to be having, because the future of work isn't built on resumes, it's built on relationships. I know there's a lot of people that may disagree with that, but they can keep disagreeing with that and having dysfunctional teams. It's just my opinion, but don't forget to subscribe. This is the third episode in the podcast and I'm excited that now that I have a little unforeseen break from the work and professional action, I'm going to have more time to do some episodes. So leave a review if this brought value to you, and be sure to reach out and follow me on LinkedIn. I'm always trying to share tools and tips and comments and posts, and also we are. I am looking to potentially either launch a higher ground IG community or a YouTube channel. It just depends on how far I want to go down the video. So until next time, be sure to hire better, lead smarter and build what lasts.

Intro/Outro:

That's it for this episode of Higher Ground, the podcast that raises the standard for hiring and sets the tone for modern staffing success. If today's insights gave you something to think about, share it with your team, your network or anyone who believes great hiring is business critical. Don't forget to follow, rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts and stay connected for more conversations that push recruiting forward. Thanks for listening and remember in the world of talent, aim higher.