One of the most valuable, intangible assets a company has is the effective soft skills of its leaders. Soft skills are just as important as technical skills. Soft skills include communication, adaptation and creativity. As a leader, it is important to communicate effectively and efficiently to gain the respect and loyalty of the team. It is also important for a leader to adapt to different and stressful situations, and creativity will assist in solving problems. Effective soft skills for those in leadership positions have strategic importance because the ability to effectively manage employees via soft skills can affect employee productivity and production or sales performance of the organization. According to Cascio, work groups that have these positive attitudes are 50% more likely to achieve customer loyalty and 44% more likely to produce above average profitability (2006, p. 48). Additionally, at the business unit level, those in the top quartile on employee engagement had, on average, $80,000 to $120,000 higher monthly revenues or sales than those in the bottom quartile. (2006, p. 48). …show more content…
Leadership soft skills are so crucial to Northrop Grumman’s success that they created a Northrop Grumman (NG) Leadership Characteristics Matrix for all levels of employees including management. The NG Leadership Characteristics Matrix is a set of behaviors that the company would like the leaders to exhibit. The set of behaviors are categorized by values, performance, people leadership, customer intimacy, innovation, and strategic value creation. The NG characteristics are evaluated through several different methods but are evaluated primarily through the performance management system and employee engagement