Coach, consultant, and facilitator at Connect Consulting helping leaders improve their thinking, communications, and overall performance.
The children are watching. And don’t be surprised if they tell you they don’t like what they’re seeing: adults behaving badly toward each other in public settings. Why? Younger generations are learning better ways to handle themselves and others. That’s admirable, yet also reveals a looming challenge for many employers. Based on specific recent project work, I’m noticing some pronounced contrasts between students and adults. That’s why I’m now sounding an alarm.
What Is Social Emotional Learning?
Today, many pre-kindergarten through high school classes provide social-emotional learning (SEL) to their students. Generally, SEL is not a separate subject; instead, the concepts are introduced into regular, age-appropriate academic lessons. For example, teachers may ask students how they’re feeling as well as encourage them to journal about their feelings and thoughts. Class lessons can feature group projects that serve as “stretch assignments” for students to practice collaborating with others.
Based on these SEL lessons, students are learning useful life skills they can apply at school, home and everywhere else, including work when they join the workforce. These skills include greater self-awareness; increased understanding of their thoughts, emotions and feelings; and empathy for their fellow classmates, teachers, parents and others in the community.
However, having empathy for adults in responsible positions may be a big lift for these students and the rest of us who think adults should know better. Consider the Thanksgiving Eve 2023 incidents of U.S. Congressmen picking fights. Or the spring 2022 argument between two school board members, which led to one threatening the life of the other. These adults are not a parent’s role models.
Yet, these adults as well as employees in all types of organizations—government, private sector and nonprofits alike—may be working at a disadvantage and therefore deserving of our empathy, because due to their age, background and experiences, they may have had minimal to no formal SEL-type training or support developing emotional intelligence, which is what many employers call SEL-type skills.
The Increasing Demand For Soft Skills
Traditionally, employers have been focused on improving workers’ technical, not SEL-type, skills. However, as technology has advanced over the past 20 to 30 years and taken over routine repetitive duties, enlightened employers and employees are discovering that humans need to use more SEL-type skills on the job. Employees are collaborating more and often doing more project work and other non-routine tasks. Humans benefit by using SEL-type skills with each other, often referred to as soft, power or behavioral skills.
Back in 2019, IBM published an extensive report explaining how their most in-demand skills were now behavioral skills, no longer technical ones. Their new top five (still relevant today) were:
• willingness to be flexible, agile and adaptable to change
• time management skills and ability to prioritize
• ability to work effectively in team environments
• ability to communicate effectively in business context
• analytic skills and business acumen
Yet nearly five years later, workplace training and reskilling for these and other soft skills still haven’t caught up with the continued and growing demand. Think about the implications of this massive skills gap in the workforce.
On one side are individuals with SEL/soft/power skills training and adoption as well as those striving to teach themselves. On the other side are the traditionalists, bullies, loners and nonconformists who prefer sticking with their status quo, which often entails marching to their own drum. While you’d like to hope the kind, responsible and respectful human beings with the SEL/soft/power skills would lead by example and bring everyone up, that’s a big ask to make with high risk and low reward.
Upskilling For Soft Skills
Employers, how about making a bigger push to upskill everyone as soon as possible? And start with the SEL agenda. While SEL training varies widely across the country, it tends to touch on five core areas, according to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). This organization focuses on helping educators and students achieve positive SEL outcomes for students from pre-kindergarten through high school.
The five core SEL areas are:
• Self-awareness, especially about emotions and feelings (which customarily have been taboo topics in the workplace)
• Self-management to take charge of one’s thoughts, emotions and actions in various situations
• Social awareness to help understand individuals with different backgrounds and be able to take their perspective
• Relationship skills to build and maintain strong connections with people from diverse backgrounds
• Responsible decision-making based on learned behaviors, including understanding the consequences of actions as well as the impact on others
Do these look familiar? They’re basically the foundation for emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence In The Workplace
Employers and employees, as well as teachers, appreciate being around individuals with emotional intelligence. In addition, employers in 2023 want both analytical and creative thinking skills, according to the World Economic Forum. After these top two skills, employers look for resilience, flexibility and agility, motivation and self-awareness, curiosity and lifelong learning. The common denominator for these skills? All of them support adapting to disruption.
Note that employers want employees who can adapt to disruption, not cause disruption. And that’s the problem with the adults who are creating chaos at work.
Remember that alarm I said I was ringing? It’s now sounding like four alarms. The situation we’re dealing with is not just a gap between those who have or are gaining SEL skills and those who don’t or aren’t. It’s becoming a rupture between those who are committed to practicing SEL skills and those who prefer to not learn them, avoid applying them or reject them.
Employers and leaders, we have some work to do.
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