Should We Teach Soft Skills to Teenagers?

Should we teach soft skills to middle school and high school students?  If so, how should we do it?  These are questions that have gained more interest in recent years.    A grad student just reached out to me on this topic with the following questions.  I am sharing my response in case you have kids or are in the teaching profession.  I look forward to your comments and thoughts.

1.      I ‘ve seen mixed research on this: Do you feel that the most effective teaching strategy is to teach an independent soft skills course, integrate soft skills into hard skill instruction, or a combination of both?

A combination of both would be ideal.   Schools already teach soft skills today.  We just don’t identify them as such or assess our kids based on it.   For example, a science class that has a team assignment is essentially teaching kids how to work together and work out how to best divide the work.  The only missing component is they are currently not graded on how well they worked together.  I can imagine an independent soft skills class that can ask them to write about their teamwork experience in other classes and what they learned from it.

2.      What do you personally feel are the top 5 most crucial soft skills for job candidates to possess? 

I would say the following would be top 5.  This applies to students and job candidates

• Growth Mindset – always willing to learn and grow
• Self Awareness and Self Confidence – strong understanding of self and believe in yourself to do anything you set your mind to
• Communication skills – ability to communicate clearly in writing and verbally
• Ability to deal with Difficult situations (aka Grit) – can adapt in unexpected and difficult situations
• Teamwork – ability to work well with others

3.      How do you assess soft skills ???

This is tough.  I wrote an article on Soft Skills Assessment and Teaching – 3 Methods.  Let me know if this answers your question.

4.      Do you think intrinsic motivation to acquire soft skills is necessary? Or are external motivations (like grades) sufficient?

I think external motivations are sufficient, but I don’t think grades alone is enough. Our kids are smart and for them to want to learn soft skills, they need to see the benefit they can gain from it immediately.  I would suggest positioning soft skills as a way they can better deal with their school and personal lives.   They can be taught about

• How to have a difficult conversations with their parents or friends.
• How to handle team assignment in classrooms
• How to deal with friendship and dating
• etc..

When we can make the teaching fun and relevant, then it will have the most impact on our students.

5.      What resources or teaching materials would you recommend for initiating soft skills instruction in high school?

That is a $60 million dollar question.  I don’t think one standard has been developed yet.   I hear of many experimenting with different methods.  I recommend modeling it after the “Touchy Feely” class at Standard Business School called Interpersonal Dynamics.  I haven’t taken the class personally, but from everything I have heard, this is exactly the type of class we need to model in order to teach soft skills successfully.

6.      Which soft skills do you feel are most easily mastered by students?

Not sure any of the soft skills is easy to master.  Soft skills by definition are difficult.  As I have written in the article 28 Soft Skills to Working Smart, there are 3 characteristics to every soft skill

1. Rules for mastering this skill is not black and white –  Unlike hard skills, like math, where the rule for doing it perfectly is always the same, how effective you are at a soft skill changes depends on your emotional state, external circumstance, and the type of people you interact with.
2. This skill is portable and valuable to any job/career – Because soft skills are about your inner strength and interpersonal effectiveness, as long as you work with people, these skills are valuable to your career.
3. Mastering this skill is an ongoing journey – You can reach a level of competency in it but you can always encounter new situations or people that will test your soft skills and push you to learn more.

With that said, I think the easiest one for students to develop is teamwork because schools already foster many activities with teamwork.  It will be an easy, first transition to teach this in school.

7.      Which soft skills are the most difficult to teach?

I think self management skills are the hardest soft skills to teach.  Self-Management Skills address how you perceive yourself and others, manage your emotions, and react to adverse situations.  They include skills like self awareness, self confidence, patience, resilience, etc.  Take self confidence for example, we all want it whether we are students or grown adults.   The earlier we can foster a sense of strength and belief in our own abilities the better.     I am still investigating how to best teach these skills to others.

8.      Which soft skills are the hardest to assess?

Assessment of all soft skills are subjective.   This is what makes assessing any soft skill difficult.  For self management skills, I think you can assess it with a multiple choice quiz.  However, whether a student has that skill is self-reported.   The assessment would also need to be augmented by teacher’s observation of the student in different circumstance.

People skills like communication skills can be assess using case studies.  You can ask students to write essays about how they would handle certain situations and why to assess their level.

9.      Do you feel that soft skills acquisition improve academic performance in other classes?

I am not sure it will improve academic performance, such as better grades in class. I don’t think that’s the goal of learning soft skills.  Soft skills will more likely help students adapt to life, the world, and the interpersonal dynamics eventually in the work place.   This is why colleges rely heavily on recommendations and essays in addition to grades to judge whether they would accept a student.   At Stanford for example, even if a student has straight As and 2400 on their SAT, they may still not be accepted.  This is mainly because Stanford is looking for that well-rounded student, someone who has a strong sense of self, show leadership potential, and care about the world beyond grades.

10.  Do you feel that any of the soft skills { communication, active listening, teamwork, responsibility, work ethic, grit,  critical thinking/work ethic, interpersonal skills }  are age sensitive (needing more maturity to acquire or perhaps needing to be learned at an earlier age)?

I think the earlier we can teach kids soft skills the better.   How we teach it however needs to be adapted to their age, so they can be motivated and see its importance.

Your comments:  Let me know if you have additional questions or comments.

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New to this site? Then start here – Soft Skills – How to Succeed like an Executive

Best wishes

Lei