The Soft Skills Nobody Lists (But Everyone Needs)

Scrolling through LinkedIn, it always jumps out—profile after profile packed with what we built, shipped, scaled, fixed. But how many highlight skills like building trust in a 1-on-1 or resolving conflicts with clarity? (Spoiler: not as many as you’d think—including mine!)

Why Instinct Isn’t Enough (and How to Build Management Skills That Actually Work)

Relying on gut instinct for team leadership is like debugging a race condition with no logs. You’re flying blind. People’s reactions can shift based on context or stress or even the time of day. With technical systems, you get consistent results by giving predictable inputs and measuring the output. Human systems aren’t so forgiving. If things go well, it feels fantastic. If things go sideways, you’re left guessing what changed. Instinct gives you moments of luck, but it can’t guarantee dependable outcomes. Would you trust any fragile production system that runs on vibes alone?

If you’ve spent most of your career building and shipping, here’s the truth. The strengths that made you a standout engineer or builder won’t carry you as a manager. In fact, clinging to those habits—the fast fixes, the solo problem-solving—can actually hold you back once you’re responsible for a team.

Not facing this is what leads to what everyone’s quietly frustrated about: some 1:1s that spark trust and momentum, others that feel like box-ticking. Conflict ends up handled ad hoc, results swinging with the manager’s mood or whoever happened to catch you in a busy week. Expectations get misaligned because we’re improvising, not running a process. I’ve been there, more often than I want to admit.

Here’s what we’re really tackling. Trust-building isn’t a bullet point. It’s a discipline. Clear communication is a skill, not a personality trait. You need conflict resolution skills backed by a repeatable playbook, not just a steady hand.

Great managers aren’t born. They’re built. Treating management as a learnable craft isn’t just theory. When you commit to learning how to build management skills and train the core capabilities, the results pay off—training leads not just to better reactions and learning, but real improvement on the ground, and increasing managerial strength by one standard deviation bumps office productivity by 10%. This was the lesson I wish I’d learned earlier. Practice beats talent every single time. If you treat the job like a craft, you stop relying on luck and start building something you can trust.

The Lightweight Feedback Loop That Converts Conversation Into Results

Here’s the feedback for managers loop I wish someone had handed me on day one. In each 1:1, I ask for targeted feedback with a simple question, pick one actionable insight, apply it in my very next interaction, and then track what happened. Every round tightens my playbook. You’ll see the scatter fade. Inputs become predictable. Outputs tighten up. When you make this a habit, framing cuts down the back-and-forth, which stabilizes your outcomes. Instead of hoping you’ll “just get better with people” over time, you’re running a repeatable, practical system.

Let’s talk about step one. Drop the open-ended “Any feedback?” and use something blunt. “What’s one thing I could do better as a manager?” You’re not fishing for compliments. You’re lowering the bar for honesty and making it nearly impossible for someone to stay vague. If you wince a little when you ask, you’re doing it right.

Right after you get feedback, ask, “What’s one resource that helped you grow as a manager?” You might get a book, a podcast, a story, even a one-liner. Doesn’t matter what format. Act interested and widen your toolkit. You’re signaling you want to get better, and that’s contagious.

When you get an answer, don’t let it float. Pick just one insight and translate it into a tiny observable behavior you’ll change in your very next conversation—nothing sweeping, just one thing. Maybe you start recapping action items out loud, or spend the first sixty seconds checking in before diving into updates. Don’t fix the whole system. Just tweak one parameter.

Honestly, this whole process feels a lot like tuning an ML model—tiny parameter updates, measured impact, run the next experiment. You wouldn’t eyeball learning rate tweaks on a hunch and call it optimized. Why treat leadership differently? Behaviors change outcomes. Growth comes from doing, not knowing.

It’s boring but true: the results compound when you keep running the loop—tiny step, observable change, reflect, repeat. If my former self had run this for a month, I’d have saved years of guesswork.

Clearing the Roadblocks: How to Actually Make This Stick

Let’s talk time cost, since it’s always the first thing that comes up. Sure, leadership practice sounds like extra work—until you measure the output. Ten focused minutes prepping for a 1:1, reviewing conversation notes, or framing an ask saves you loops of clarification and gets conflicts resolved before they turn into all-hands fire drills. Here’s the technical reality: the bandwidth you spend up front slashes rework later, makes conflict decisions faster, and creates clear expectations that hold up. Outputs stabilize once framing cuts down the back-and-forth, which is exactly what short, regular prep does for your week. Don’t think of it as overhead. Think of it as compounding interest.

Now about worrying this feels performative. I used to think that scripting out my approach or repeating the same phrases would come off fake, or like I was pulling some management theater. But here’s the thing. Deliberate practice for managers isn’t putting on a show. It’s respect. Doing things on purpose signals care and creates stability for your team—nobody’s left guessing how you’ll handle a tough moment. If you care enough to be consistent, that care shows up in the results.

Here’s something I still catch myself doing: even when I know the feedback loop works, some weeks I just wing it out of habit or because I’m tired. It never goes as well. I know better, but my default mode sometimes wins. Maybe that’s just the work—I’m not sure I’ll ever fully break that habit.

Let’s clear up the measurement question, too. You can’t just eyeball whether relationships are improving. Start tracking the micro-signals. Look at how often people speak up in meetings—does it go up when you make your asks clearer? How many action items get followed through week over week? Are there fewer surprise escalations or “this suddenly blew up” moments? Is there clarity in conflict decisions? Bank these tiny signals. They’re your version of release metrics for human systems. Watch for patterns: confidence grows, rework drops, and conflicts shift from ad hoc reactions to repeatable playbooks. That’s what real progress looks like. Once clear requests enable faster understanding, outputs stop swinging so much.

And yes, asking for feedback in a 1-on-1 can feel awkward—especially when you’re trying to run effective one-on-ones and build trust without seeming needy. Here’s what actually works: anchor your ask to a shared goal (“I want to make these conversations more useful for us both”), and put a frame around the topic (“Can you give me feedback on trust building in these 1:1s?”). People tend to dodge broad requests, but a targeted ask lowers the risk and gets practical input. Admission: I used to just toss “Any feedback?” into the air; not helpful. The more specific you are, the more useful the response.

Want to Be a Great Manager? Stop Trusting Your Gut. Practiced behaviors turn instinct into reliability, and that’s what lifts teams, not lucky guesses.

This Week: Put the Loop to Work

Here’s your map for the next seven days. Pick one area to focus on—either trust-building or handling conflict—to build people leadership skills as your running theme. During each 1:1, run the feedback loop: ask a direct question tied to your theme, pull out one specific insight, and pick something simple you can try in your next interaction. Keep notes as you go, and when Friday rolls around, carve out ten minutes to look back at what you changed and what happened. If you’re wondering how to start, just borrow one leadership resource you respect and model your practice off it. Small, on-purpose tweaks beat wild swings every time.

Imagine LinkedIn profiles that showcase evidence of trust-building and conflict clarity right next to product expertise. That’s where the field is heading, and it’s the work that actually scales careers and teams.

So try it this week. Practice beats instinct. The sooner you start running this loop, the faster the compounding starts. One visible shift at a time.