Insights

We have been trying to fix the word for decades. Power Skills. Durable Skills. Essential Skills. Human Skills. Each rebranding effort arrives with good intentions and a reasonable argument: the word "soft" has come to imply weakness, and weakness is not what we mean, so let's find a better word. But renaming is not reckoning. And before we retire the term, it is worth asking a more uncomfortable question: how did we get here? How did a set of skills that determines whether te

A new leader steps into a department that has been through change. People are tired. Skeptical. A bit brittle around the edges. One employee, in particular, speaks with open contempt: “These people are idiots. They have no clue how to do their jobs.” “They never keep what they commit to anyway.” The comments are often framed as frustration, sometimes even as humor. And at first, the leader lets it slide. They tell themselves: I don’t want to overreact. I’m still new here. I w

After working with leaders across industries and contexts, one pattern keeps repeating itself: the most meaningful shifts are rarely the ones people expect when they first enter leadership development. Many come in hoping to become someone else. More confident. More decisive. More inspiring. Less reactive. What actually changes is more subtle, and more demanding. Here’s what I see change, and what doesn’t, when leaders genuinely do the work. Development doesn’t change persona