Soft skills, the key to performance

1. To begin with, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your
career path and your current role?

As founder of Alphalead Business Health, I support executives and teams in building resilience and teach at business schools, with expertise in behavioural skills development, soft skills, agile leadership and collective intelligence. As an executive coach and FSEA trainer trained in neurocognitivism, I take a humanistic and innovative approach, offering pragmatic, tailor-made solutions to promote resilience, well-being and efficiency in a rapidly changing professional world. Author of Vitamine Soft Skills, for better living in the workplace in the digital age, I offer inspiring conferences, seminars and co-development groups (Permanence Soft Skills©) to facilitate organisational change.

2. In your opinion, why have soft skills become a central issue in
companies today?

Soft skills are essential because the professional world has become unpredictable, digital and collaborative. They enable agility, resilience and the ability to manage complexity, far beyond technical knowledge. In an environment saturated with information, spreadsheets, procedures and KPIs, it is human qualities that make the difference and drive collective performance. At a time when we thought we could anticipate everything with numbers, reality has set in: what drives sustainable performance are human beings, their curiosity, their agility, their ability to listen, collaborate and stick together when the going gets tough and the ground shifts beneath our feet. Putting soft skills at the centre means betting on collective intelligence, regeneration and resilience.

3. In your experience, what are the most important behavioural skills?
What skills are companies currently looking for?

Reliability should be at the top of the list for any recruitment. It is essential at all levels of the company. In addition to this skill, there are four main categories: 

1. Active listening and respectful communication to build trust.
2. Adaptability and resilience to manage the unexpected.
3. Curiosity, creativity and collective intelligence to promote innovation and performance.
4. Self-awareness, stress management, and motivation to build resilience.

These skills are not only expected but are becoming key drivers for agile, people-oriented and sustainable businesses.

4. We often talk about “interpersonal skills” as a performance lever: how do soft skills actually influence individual and collective success?

Without interpersonal, emotional and cognitive skills, individuals cannot interact healthily with their environment. Managing stress, listening, understanding, imagining, communicating, adapting and collaborating are fundamental skills in the professional world.

In a team or during recruitment, we value social intelligence, self-confidence, likeability, decision-making, proactivity, priority management, problem-solving, organisation, autonomy, motivation and the ability to give feedback. These are all personal and interpersonal skills that contribute to personal effectiveness and employability, and therefore to performance.

On a collective level, according to studies conducted by McKinsey and Psicosmart (2022/2024), companies that promote collaborative leadership see their productivity increase fivefold and become more effective in dealing with unforeseen events and complexity, increasing employee satisfaction, reducing staff turnover and stimulating innovation.
These results confirm that a climate of trust and goodwill encourages cooperation, strengthens commitment, and enables teams to adapt better in a
uncertain world.

Soft skills are therefore not simply complementary to technical skills; they are the essential foundation for transforming individual talents into collective strengths.

5. How can managers identify the key soft skills of their teams and develop them on a daily basis?

In traditional management, annual reviews and tests are offered.
psychometric, 360°, DISC. We train, coach and assess. A traditional method that could stigmatise, bias and perpetuate old-fashioned governance models.

For my part, in line with the corporate strategy, I would favour a more innovative, collaborative, dynamic and biocentric approach. As in LEAN methods, identify and list the irritants that disrupt or slow down teams. What are the faulty tools, noise, missed deadlines, email overload, micromanagement, gossip, unnecessary meetings, etc.?

Then, facilitate co-development sessions and teach simple techniques for managing, reducing or even eliminating irritants. Take advantage of what these irritants say about the corporate culture and work processes to improve governance and certain operating methods for the benefit of employees, customers and stakeholders, in a spirit of cooperation and, in doing so, develop soft skills.

6. Soft skills evolve over time: how can you stay up to date and continue to develop in this area?

Develop a culture of feedback and apply a continuous quality and adaptation approach to work processes, incorporating periods of resilience and celebration.

7. Finally, in your opinion, what role do training programmes play in the development of soft skills and human management?

Management training courses and soft skills are essential, particularly in the digital age, enabling managers and employees to develop the key skills needed to adapt to rapid changes in the professional world.

Resilience and agility are two crucial qualities for navigating an unstable and complex world. Trainers and training centres are also encouraged to evolve by offering immersive and modular programmes, combined with practical applications, to help leaders and teams integrate these soft skills into their daily work.

In short, soft skills are now an essential strategic lever.