Executives have always been—and always will be—expected to produce results. But today they’re expected to produce them in a fundamentally different way. Gone are the days of the heroic individual leading from the front. Instead, in most corporations decision-making has become decentralized, and leaders are now supposed to empower and enable their people. Because of that they’ve had to give up considerable control. As Raffaella Sadun and her colleagues reported in this magazine (see “The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most,” July–August 2022), people skills—often described as “soft skills”—are now especially critical for leaders.
A version of this article appeared in the May–June 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.
Read more on Leadership
or related topics
Leadership styles,
Adaptive leadership,
Managing people,
Interpersonal skills
and Interpersonal communication
