4 Essential Soft Skills for Every IT Support Professional

Pay attention to leadership skills

Leadership is often misconstrued as a management-only task. Showing leadership qualities is an important skill for all job levels and better prepares an individual for increased responsibilities as they grow within their career.

Here are a few common ways to demonstrate your leadership qualities:

• Show positivity and resilience during times of change
• Be self-aware and prioritize team over self
• Help to identify and communicate challenges facing the team
• Show a willingness and desire to mentor and motivate other staff

If you are a people manager today, it’s important to identify and recognize staff demonstrating these traits as potential future leaders in your organization. Some of my best management hires throughout my career are those who did not have previous experience, but showed the ability to lead and cared about the work and people around them.

If you are not currently a people manager but aspire to become one, talk to your leadership team and other mentors to help build a roadmap towards reaching your goal.

Be adaptable

In an ever-evolving technical landscape, being adaptable is an essential trait to remain ahead of the curve. It’s common to want to stick to work and technology you have familiarity with. Whether Operating Systems, business applications, collaboration tools, or hardware standards, the one constant in the world of IT over the years has been change.

According to a recent Mckinsey report, “By 2030, activities that account for up to 30 percent of hours currently worked across the US economy could be automated — a trend accelerated by generative AI.” With the increased use of Generative AI, chatbots and digital employee experience (DEX) tools on the rise across our industry, it’s important that individuals: 

1. Keep an open mind for how these technologies may change how IT support will be provided.
2. Identify how to best implement and leverage these tools within your environment.
3. Put an emphasis on training and continued development (including related certifications) to acquire the needed skills in these technologies.

Find ways to collaborate

Working with others to achieve a common goal such as completing a project, asking for feedback on a potential improvement, or remediating a complex issue within your technical environment can help deliver better value to your end users in the form of improved services and quicker resolution times.

Those that are open to and proactively look for ways to expand their network with other technical peers and business stakeholders set themselves up for success by:

1. Creating improved internal relationships that can remove previous silos that may have existed and encourage future cross-functional work to continue.
2. Learning new skills and perspectives.
3. Helping to promote and open up new opportunities for themselves that may come up in the future.

Enhance your communication skills

As an IT support professional, written and verbal communication is essential for efficient troubleshooting and setting proper expectations with end user and business stakeholders. This helps to build rapport and enhance the overall perception of the  IT services being delivered.

When considering your communication approach, think of your audience as you should tailor it for technical/non-technical users, colleagues and executives. The audiences you are communicating with should dictate the technical jargon that is used and the level of detail needed,

Outside of 1:1 interactions, look to also build your experience and comfort level presenting information to larger audiences through repetitions. A few opportunities to look at for this are:

1. Team meetings
2. Leadership/Peer Groups
3. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
4. Toastmasters clubs
5. HDI Community and local chapters

These opportunities will allow you to gain confidence, enhance your network and visibility and receive feedback and recognition for your ideas.