The debate about the importance of technical or “hard skills” versus “soft skills” for managers seems to be a never-ending one, especially in engineering circles. Feelings vary on this topic from individual contributors at small startups to executives at some of the largest companies on the planet. And there are several good reasons this topic is so hotly debated:

• Companies may be at different points in their journey of maturing new processes, technologies, or patterns where they are dependent on managers to push those initiatives forward
• Communication pathways throughout the company can vary in their dependency on managers
• Budgets vary between companies and some, especially at earlier stages, may require managers to wear multiple hats
• Expectations of managers vary from company to company, especially in the eyes of senior leadership
• The blend of seniorities and tenures is different from company to company, potentially leading to different dynamics and expectations between managers and individual contributors

To simplify it though, as a people manager, your responsibility is to maximize the effectiveness of your organization and the people in it to drive the best outcomes for the business.

People just get hung up on — and tend to argue about — what set of skills they believe are required to do that.

Sharpening The Technical Saw

First, let me start by saying that, no matter what your level of seniority, be it a front-line manager or member of the C-Suite, you can never be too up-to-date on industry trends and the state-of-the-art tools or technology. No one will ever fault a marketer, even a seasoned executive, for staying hands-on with what is changing with algorithms across the major digital marketing platforms. And, similarly, no one will look twice at the CTO who continues to pursue their own side-projects on the weekends using new trending frameworks on Github.

It's important to stay current, and moving into a management or leadership role isn't a step away from that being an important part of your job.

It’s a Balancing Act

But there are times when being "too technical" can end up being a liability for a leader. This "self-assuredness" can lead to prescriptiveness in solutions and micromanagement. This can lead to an environment driven by output, rather than outcomes, where individuals on the team may not feel ownership of solutions — or, even worse, feel stifled due to power dynamics in the relationship with their boss.

This is where "soft skills" come in. As a leader, your responsibility is, first and foremost, to ensure that your team is capable of tackling these types of challenges as effectively as possible. Many times, this means simply getting out of their way. Other times though, it means engaging them creatively to help them think through a problem and lead them to the best solution they can come up with. Or it may mean sensing internal or external conflicts and coaching the team through resolution on their own. Soft skills are catalytic in nature: they rarely solve the problem directly and oftentimes are less efficient than hands-on action, but the downstream effects are more scalable in the long run.

Conversely, "not being technical enough" can also be a major liability for a leader, but typically for different reasons. The organization will be looking to these leaders to represent (and in many cases, answer for) what is happening in any given department or team. And functional versus organizational leaders, as Suzan Bond differentiates here, will need to have a certain level of technical knowledge in order to effectively do that. For functional leaders, they will have to rely on their own technical knowledge, as well as being kept well-informed by the team, to be able to speak authoritatively on any subject that comes their way. For organizational leaders, it's even more complex. At this level, leaders are representing a cross-disciplinary group, so they must take it upon themselves to build deep relationships with functional leaders and learn how to best represent them and their discipline when needed.

Hold on Loosely, But Don’t Let Go

For leaders who don't spend time learning the technical details, a few things may start to happen.

One example is that others in the organization may start to operate around them. For example, a COO may ask a Director of Operations for the details of a particular system outage. The Director of Operations then asks his Principal Engineer for those details. The write-up then gets passed back to the Director to get back to the COO, who had been patiently (or impatiently) waiting for an update. Over time, this communication pattern leads the COO to start talking to the Principal Engineer directly to get a quicker answer, causing the Director of Operations to be increasingly out of the loop.

Additional responsibility for the manager may also become an increased tax on the team. For example, a leader gets promoted and takes on the responsibility for another department and set of teams. With that, a new initiative requires that the manager projects revenue and costs for the next 12-24 months. Because they are not close enough to the details, they are overly reliant on their already-busy team to pull all of the historical data necessary in order to build those models, which will then slow down multiple projects in flight.

But a major risk is that opportunities for innovation may pass you by. With the rapid advancements of AI across every discipline, every leader should be thinking about how this technology can be applied to their current and future products and operations. And for leaders who aren't staying close to the details of their business and their team, they are liable to miss the opportunities to connect those dots. However, as a leader, this is where "soft skills" are also invaluable: the ability to bring people together, influence strategy, and help people adapt to this new and changing environment is where transformation happens.

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Ultimately, there should not be a debate between the importance of "hard skills" and "soft skills." While technical proficiency and industry knowledge are indispensable for credibility and informed decision-making, it is the soft skills that drive team cohesion, innovation, and long-term success. Managers simply must develop and hone whatever skills are necessary in the business environment they operate to lead and best represent their team — all in service of delivering the most value possible for your customers and for the business.

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