The debate around how many jobs artificial intelligence will automate is heating up, with recent news showing that AI can automate college-grad jobs such as software engineering and sales development.
Critics of AI affirm that it will never fully replace humans, since AI lacks the interpersonal, communicative, leadership and similar “power” skills of human workers. And, as a result, they believe AI is doomed to tasks and functions that solely rely on technical competencies. If this viewpoint is accurate, and AI will not replace human workers because AI lacks power skills, then humans need to invest in power skills now to stay ahead of AI’s advance.
Beyond staying ahead of AI’s advance, there are many tangible benefits to developing power skills. For workers, power skills facilitate success because they empower them to negotiate more effectively, build coalitions around their ideas and maintain relationships with key stakeholders. For organizations, employees with strong power skills translate into positive interactions with customers, a high-performance culture committed to continuous improvement and more effective leadership in times of organizational change and innovation.
There are a lot of power skills out there – which ones should C-suite and learning and development leaders prioritize for their workforce? To help answer this question, I conducted original research using Searchlight’s proprietary database of candidate assessments to determine the most in-demand soft skills for two sought-after roles at technology companies; software engineers and salespeople. I also dived into the academic literature and surfaced research-backed techniques to help leaders develop their workforce’s power skills. Here’s what I found.
What are power skills?
Power skills are qualities and traits that make us human, such as active listening, empathy, strategic thinking and resourcefulness. Machines cannot authentically duplicate these qualities. Originally called soft skills, this family of skills has been renamed due to elevated importance in the remote world.
On the other hand are hard skills, or the technical competencies required to perform a job. Examples of hard skills include statistical analyses, coding, product knowledge and usage of customer relationship management software. Unlike power skills, this family of skills has been found to be authentically reproduced in AI (e.g., AutoML for statistical analyses).
The most in-demand power skills
To explore which power skills are most in-demand for software engineers and salespeople, I leveraged Searchlight’s proprietary database of candidate assessments which contains more than 20,000 hiring decisions across more than150 organizations. To identify the most essential power skills for engineering and sales roles, I compared the power skills of applicants who received a job offer against the power skills of applicants who did not receive a job offer. Applicants’ power skills were rated by at least two work references, providing a holistic and relatively unbiased view of the applicant.
AI is beginning to automate white collar jobs in technology and sales, demonstrating the breadth of AI’s impact across the workplace. As C-suite and L&D leaders contemplate how to set up their workforce for success in an era of automation, my results point to the specific power skills needed to be successful.
As engineering and sales roles serve distinct functions, these roles also require different power skills to be successful. Successful engineers have power skills that embrace learning and challenging oneself — and leveraging this motivational force to make the product and the team better off. In contrast, successful salespeople have power skills that propel action toward key outcomes (such as sales quotas, ARR, NRR).
How to develop your workforce’s power skills
Developing your workforce’s power skills will be critical as more and more hard skills are reproduced with AI. Thanks to extensive research in education psychology, we have evidence on how people learn new skills. Here are three research-backed techniques to developing power skills based on Stanford Professor Albert Bandura’s research:
Step 1: Highlight colleagues who possess desired power skills as role models.
Research reveals the first step to learning a new skill is to surround oneself with colleagues who can serve as positive role models. For instance, if you want to learn how to cultivate a growth mindset, seek out role models who embody a growth mindset — that is, using challenges, criticism or poor performance reviews to learn and grow.
As a C-suite or L&D leader, consider a public recognition program that encourages managers to publicly praise role models that possess desired power skills.
Step 2: Facilitate workers to practice desired power skills and seek feedback.
The second step to learning a new skill is to try out behaviors associated with the skill and seek informal feedback. For instance, to develop a growth mindset, workers should have experience with projects that are outside one’s comfort zone. These projects require one to hone strategies and work processes, leading to improvement. But, practice is not enough. Direct managers should provide constructive feedback to ensure the practice is leading to progress.
As a C-suite or L&D leader, consider adding structured feedback mechanisms on desired power skills to formal employee development conversations.
Step 3: Tie rewards to the desired power skills.
The final step to learning a new skill is to implement rewards for enacting the behaviors associated with the skill. Company culture is one of the most effective ways to reward desired power skills. Cultures can implicitly reward and punish different types of behaviors, so if a company culture rewards behaviors associated with a particular power skill, then employees are more likely to learn the new skill. For instance, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella changed Microsoft’s culture to reward a growth mindset by rethinking its leadership development program.
As a C-suite or L&D leader, investigate whether your company culture rewards desired power skills. If your culture does not reward individuals for possessing the desired power skills, consider culture change (see this case study as an example).
