How the Future Works

Step 6: Train Your Leaders to Make It Work: “Soft” Skills Matter More than Ever

The early 2020s will be remembered by many as the period when the nature of people management shifted. From the overnight move to virtual during the pandemic to the Great Resignation that followed, the shift from predictable, day-to-day management to continual discontinuity was taxing for managers. And it showed in their sentiment: our Future Forum global survey of knowledge workers found the following (see also Figure 6.1):

• Middle managers (defined as those managing 1–6 people) were 46% less satisfied with their jobs than senior managers (those managing at least 15 people).
• Managers struggled more than twice as much as executives when it comes to maintaining a sense of belonging.
• Managers felt more stressed and less productive than their more senior colleagues.

Figure 6.1 The employee experience of middle managers

Source: Future Forum Pulse, 2021

The Future Forum Pulse measures how knowledge workers feel about their working lives on a five-point scale (from “very poor” to “very good”) across eight dimensions on a scale from –60 (most negative) to +60 (most positive).

And the disruption that caused these sentiments is likely to continue for some time. “No one knows anything for sure about what's coming,” writes the futurist, Alex Steffen. “Being ready when the big shifts come… involves being ...