I'm some flavor of non-neurotypical and struggle with social awareness, as I've covered in several of my past questions here. I have mastered the social skills needed to get to a middle management job but I get the sense there are some next-level skills I need if I want to keep advancing to leadership. What are they, and how does someone develop them?
For background, I do not have a shy or retiring personality. I'm direct and at times authoritative. Also, I am in a well-run and healthy workplace environment, and have received multiple highly positive reviews and promotions at a pace that is appropriate for my tenure. This is not a question about how to deal with discrimination as a neuroatypical woman and I'd like to request that everyone refrain from giving advice along those lines.
After many years of struggling, I've mastered what I think of as a "basic" or "101-level" social skillset and can meet neurotypical people's expectations for a functional adult in the workplace. Those are things like:
-Observing social niceties like saying please, thank you, and excuse me
-Making small talk about topics like the weather, asking after people's weekend, etc. without monologuing
-Delivering difficult feedback at work directly and with empathy
-Gratefully accepting criticism of my work and seeing it as an opportunity to grow
-Approaching disagreements collaboratively, asking clarifying questions, and accepting I may be wrong. I would never in a million years insult someone or call them names.
-Keeping an upbeat attitude even when my work is something I don't feel like doing
-Staying emotionally cool at work and avoiding any kind of outbursts
-Realizing when I've interrupted someone and giving them a chance to talk
-Keeping my pedantic instincts to myself and shutting my mouth instead of leaping to correct someone
-Giving polished, professional presentations to clients and other external audiences
However, when I think about my colleagues who have advanced to leadership, both men and women, they all have a skillset of what I would call "advanced" social skills, and these are the ones I still struggle with. That's things like:
-Proactively reaching out to people at work with the intent of relationship-building
-Building rapport with clients as the foundation of longer-term relationships (my role doesn't involve business development, but these types of relationships can still be very productive)
-Anticipating when it is my turn to talk so that I rarely interrupt anyone in the first place
-Something I'll call "making my staff feel appreciated". I thank them for their work and give them detailed positive feedback. I also give them tons of flexibility around workload, schedule, and time off, and I advocate for their needs with higher-ups. But I think I'm missing something deeper here about recognizing and rewarding people for their time and work.
-Understanding when a topic at work is political and when people have hidden or unstated motivations behind asking a question or criticising my work. I'm going to leave an example of this below in a comment.
I guess my question is more or less in three parts:
1. Is it possible to be a good leader without advanced social skills?
2. What other advanced social skills should be on my list?
3. How do I build advanced social skills? |
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