During a recent coffee break with one of my senior managers, the discussion turned to the year ahead: Advances in areas from quantum computing to biotechnology are happening fast — by this time next year, big new developments will likely have taken hold and continue to reshape our world at dizzying speeds.
At the same time, the conversation with my colleague was taking place in a cafe untouched, at least on the surface, by the big changes we were forecasting. Aside from an iPad-enabled payment system, the place could have been pulled from a sitcom set any time in the last 20 years, with comfy chairs, abstract art for sale on the walls and the whirr of espresso machines providing the soundtrack.
As we look to the coming year, entrepreneurs and leaders of all stripes should be sharpening the skills they need for the future, some of which will involve learning new tools and technologies. But as I sipped my coffee, it occurred to me how grounding these IRL connections are, too — in fact, we need them now more than ever.
With our increasingly online realities, it may seem counterintuitive to spend time deepening soft skills. My take? In the next year, hard and soft skills will go hand-in-hand. Here’s what I’ll be focusing on.
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Top-notch emotional intelligence
Harvard Business Review contributors Laura Empson and Jennifer Howard-Grenville have a term for our uncertain place in history — this tension between what once was and what is yet to come is called a “liminal experience,” and it can be unsettling for leaders and teams alike. Nourishing organizational connections “feeds a sense of collective capacity,” the authors write, which serves as an anchor point against the chaos.
But even as our need for connection increases, it seems our collective emotional intelligence, or EQ, is on the downswing. That, at least, is the conclusion reached by one survey conducted by the nonprofit Six Seconds, which found that EQ is on its fourth consecutive year of decline. “On average, people are more volatile; less likely to be able to navigate emotions,” says Six Seconds CEO Joshua Freedman. “They’re less likely to feel connected to empathy, or a bigger sense of purpose. They’re less likely to be able to accurately understand and label the feelings they’re experiencing — a crucial foundation for mental and emotional health.”
In 2025, leaders should double down on growing their EQ. One of the first steps in that journey is getting up close and personal with your emotions. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett suggests challenging yourself to expand your emotional vocabulary — what first might strike you as anger after a botched product launch, for example, may actually be rooted in embarrassment or shame. Correctly identifying your true feelings changes your reaction to them, which in turn fosters both self-awareness and empathy — crucial elements for growing EQ.
AI literacy
To most effectively harness the power of AI in 2025, leaders need to understand it. DataCamp’s Matt Crabtree describes AI literacy, at its most basic, as having the skills and competencies required to use AI technologies and applications effectively.
But it’s much more than that: Crabtree points out that AI literacy is also about enabling people to make informed decisions about how they’re using AI, understand the implications of those uses and navigate the ethical considerations they present.
For leaders, that means understanding biases that remain embedded in AI systems, privacy concerns, and the need for transparency and accountability. Say you’re looking to integrate AI into your hiring process, as we have at my company, Jotform. It’s important to understand that while it can be used for tasks like scheduling interviews, screening resumes for objective criteria or helping to organize candidate information, it should not be making hiring decisions for you. AI still has a significant bias problem, in addition to the many other ways in which it lacks the soft skills required for certain, human-only tasks. AI literacy is about understanding its shortcomings and navigating them in a way that is fair and equitable.
Related: I Teach AI and Entrepreneurship. Here’s How Entrepreneurs Can Use AI to Better Understand Their Target Customers.
Motivational skills
Every leader wants to be inspiring, but unfortunately, a lot of us fall short of that goal: In fact, a survey circulated by Harvard Business Review found that less than half of respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed that their leaders were inspiring or unlocking motivation in employees. Ouch.
The problem is that lots of leaders use an antiquated carrot-stick method for rewarding employees for a job well done or reprimanding them for a less-than-stellar showing. But today’s workers are different: In addition to fair compensation, they also want meaning and purpose from their careers.
To keep employees motivated, especially amid times of change, leaders must keep the company’s vision front and center. Every employee, from senior directors down to interns, should understand how the work they’re doing is contributing to that vision. At Jotform, it’s well understood that we make forms. But as the founder and CEO, it’s my job to make sure that everyone sees the bigger picture: We make people’s lives easier. We free them from tedious tasks so that they can spend more time doing what they care about.
Inspiring leaders make their employees excited to show up for work every day. As Kelly Decker and Ben Decker write in Harvard Business Review, a clearly communicated vision creates an emotional connection to work. When priorities shift, be transparent about why they’re shifting and how the changes connect to the organization’s larger mission. It’s also important to draw a clear line between team members’ strengths and how they’re helping to achieve organizational goals. Inspirational leaders achieve buy-in among their employees, the authors write, by shifting their teams’ mentalities from “I have to” to “I want to.”
The coming year promises to be one of change, which can be both daunting and exciting. While it’s important to stay on top of new technologies, the key will be sharpening those soft skills, so you can be the kind of leader people want to chat with IRL over a cup of coffee.
