I've sat through countless workshops on 'soft skills' and still think they're oversold. Sure, communication and empathy help in meetings, but when I look at my own career, the real leaps came from hard technical abilities—coding, data analysis, or knowing how to close a contract. A friendly vibe won't fix a broken budget model, and I've seen charismatic managers crash projects because they couldn't dive into the details. Maybe we're just bad at measuring soft skills, so we pretend they matter more than they do.