If you’re new to the workforce, you’ve probably read articles about the importance of building “soft skills”—empathy, resilience, compassion, adaptability, and others. The advice isn’t wrong. Research shows soft skills are foundational to great leadership and set high performers apart from their peers. They’re also increasingly sought by employers.

But, to me, resilience isn’t “soft,” and neither is compassion. As a person who is new to the corporate world, I’ve begun to wonder: Why do we frame interpersonal skills this way?

When you look up “soft” in the dictionary, you’ll find descriptors like agreeable, quiet, subdued, easy, impressionable, and weak. None of these adjectives do justice to the competencies mentioned above. When we define more technical, quantifiable skills as “hard,” it almost seems like we are assigning more value to our output at work and less to our characters.

There are consequences to this. In my experience, it can discourage people from focusing on building a healthy relationship with themselves and others. I’ve felt this throughout my education and early career. My instinct to prioritize people over production has often seemed incorrect. While there, of course, needs to be a balance between the personal and the professional, I feel an unhealthy pressure to constantly do more, produce more, and get ahead if I want to succeed.

During a time when some of our most pressing problems can only be solved through a mutual desire to understand one another, I believe labeling skills this way is a mistake. Without empathy, leadership, and good communication, we can’t possibly begin to build a more equitable workforce. In a world that is changing faster than we can imagine, why don’t we prioritize open-mindedness and adaptability?

As we accentuate the need to lead with compassion, and for the next generation to make work an inclusive space, it’s important we recognize that the skills we call “soft” are the skills we need the most.

Here’s how to develop them.

Recommended Reads

Don’t Just Focus on Your Technical Skills. Focus on Your People Skills.
by Jeff Tan
Reframe the narrative around the skills that will get you ahead.

How Transparent Should You Be with Your Team?
by Martin G. Moore
To find a balance between the personal and professional, you need to know what to communicate to your team, and when.

Actually, It’s Okay to Disagree with People at Work
by Vasundhara Sawhney
Respectfully disagreeing with someone is a skill, and your career (and yourself) will benefit greatly from it.

3 Skills Every New Leader Needs
by Julia Boorstin
Great leaders are more than experts in their fields. They have a combination of technical and interpersonal skills.

Be Kind to Yourself Today
by Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar
One of the most effective ways to alleviate stress, worry, and general anxieties about our lives is to practice this skill: self-compassion.