[extralego]

Soft skills != being nice

Soft skills most essentially involve communication. “Being nice” is a much wider umbrella which includes reciprocation of many things not limited to: dignity, consideration, morality, mutual respect, agency and comradery. When we treat the former as the whole of the latter, the structure breaks down. It may not be obvious, and the damage might be displaced out of sight, but the point I’m trying to make is there’s nothing “nice” about making that mistake.

(While the success of soft skills will usually depend on other types of skills, “soft skills” nonetheless is essentially limited to interpersonal communication skills.)