Skills “for the future” that we need now
“Resilience. Adaptability. Flexibility.”
The World Economic Forum’s Top 10 skills for 2025 now includes what might have been considered “soft skills” when compared to the more traditional lists of previous years. In addition to skills like analytical problem solving and technology expertise, a “new” imperative has been added to the skills for the workplace: the need to cultivate “resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.” Or, the ability to manage oneself.
Perhaps this stems from the recent emotional turmoil of the past several years? In “The Year We Lost It,” Adam Sternbergh states, “Maybe 2022 has simply been the culmination of several years spent steeping in a stew of angry discourse, stirred by social media. We’ve all become the frogs in the boiling water — except, this year, the frogs boiled over.”
What’s curious about this is why have these soft skills taken so long to get on the list? Psychologist and creator of the concept of “Emotional Intelligence,” Daniel Goleman, published his best-selling book on the topic in 1995–27 years ago. At that time–before social media frenzies, before the iPhone and at the dawn of the internet, Goleman stated what now seems obvious: “By teaching people to tune in to their emotions with intelligence and to expand their circles of caring, we can transform organizations from the inside out and make a positive difference in our world.” Yet a spate of public stressors has finally brought this to the attention of the World Economic Forum, almost three decades later.
Perhaps the more pressing question is: How did this take so long? Why are we not actively assessing our own self-management and teaching the skills our children and employees need to cultivate now and for the future? Is public rage, employee dissatisfaction and a full-blown mental health crisis needed in order for us to pay attention?
Instead of seeing resilience, adaptability and flexibility as new areas of focus, perhaps this is a long, overdue and urgent correction. Old habits die slowly. As humans and leaders we often fall back on previous ways of doing instead of learning new ways to manage our emotions and successfully navigate change. According to Brassey and De Smet in the Harvard Business Review, “This is the adaptability paradox: when we most need to learn, change and adapt, we are most likely to react with old approaches that aren’t suited to our new situation, leading to poorer decisions and ineffective solutions.”
As those tasked with caring for children and adults in our communities, our job is to proactively lead and teach emotional regulation in order to allow our schools to operate hopefully and optimally for the future. An important first step is acknowledging how difficult it is to lean into emotions, to be present for difficult conversations and to examine the underlying systems we have failed to create to assess and sustain change.
The research suggests tangible ways to help yourself and your school actively address the emotional flooding that may be occurring on your campus–and offers actions to take for better resilience, flexibility and stress management.
First and foremost, actively manage your emotions: According to Arthur C. Brookes, author of The Atlantic’s “How to Build a Life” series, “This requires what some social scientists call metacognition: becoming aware of your own feelings and observing them as impartially as you can. Doing so activates your executive function, so you can be less impulsive and more in control.” How often do you notice and interrupt moments of impulse during your day? Do you stop, observe, maybe take a breath, and then respond? Do you work with others to do the same before sending an email or engaging in a heated conversation?
Observe yourself. In The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, the authors (Detmer, Chapman and Klemp) offer a clear and helpful model of personal awareness to guide you each day: Are you above or below the line? When you are above the line, you are open, curious and committed to learning. When you are below (we all are at times!), you are defensive, closed and committed to being right. In moments of decision making and in our interpersonal relationships, do we take the time to actively manage ourselves when we dip below the line? How do you work with parents, colleagues and students in these moments?
Model “listening to learn.” What happens when you really listen to someone instead of waiting your turn to speak? How might this change if you reflect on how well you listen for understanding. Executive Coach Carolyn Coughlin shares three types of listening: "Listening to win is, 'Let me make the problem go away by telling you, you don’t have a problem.' Listening to learn is getting underneath what’s being said and reflecting back to the person. And listening to fix is, 'Let me take your problem and solve it for you, or help you solve it.'" Why do we default to fixing when we know the benefits of allowing others the space to figure things out. It may make things easier in the short run but it does not address the ways to address improved self-awareness and self- management. What are we, as educators, doing to teach and model listening to learn in our communities?
Use empathy interviews in any discovery process! A key feature of human-centered design is the use of empathy interviewing as a skill to better understand others before forming opinions and making decisions. An extension of listening, empathy interviewing allows us to go directly to the source (a student, a parent, a teacher) and ask questions to open up understanding, discover themes and see the world through another’s eyes. It also leads to greater empathy and compassion during stressful situations. Just ask, “Tell me more about that” and see what you uncover.
Prioritize team maintenance. Whatever team you are on–your administrative team, your department, your grade level cohort–make the time to care for the team, to build team connectedness and to discuss the why behind the what. Do you start each meeting with a warm up or check in? Do you talk about both personal and professional values and priorities? Do you offer a “post-mortem” on how something has worked or not worked? What do you do beyond the day-to-day tasks to add connectivity and depth to your shared work?
Edit yourself; practice self-control and self-compassion if you slip up. As Brookes states, “Freaking out is almost always a source of regret and embarrassment, not satisfaction and pride. Keeping your cool avoids bad outcomes and sets a good example for others.”
Proactively use and teach tools that are readily available such as mindfulness research, meditation apps and exercise to combat your own anxiety and worry–and realize that is just one part of the solution.
In order to address the symptoms including rage, frustration, burnout, mental health challenges–leaders must work actively to understand why we and others are not paying better attention to the needs of our communities. Futurist Lisa Kay Soloman asks: How do we cultivate empathy for the future to better equip ourselves for today? If we truly desire healthier communities for today and tomorrow, we can actively design for a preferred future where we create the conditions for a world where resilience, adaptability and flexibility are not a new skill to learn but one that is the foundation for all learning.
