The Hardest Soft Skill for High Performing Startup Teams

In the startups I’ve worked in, there’s one skill that sits above all others that ensured higher-performing teams:

Professional Integrity.

Professional Integrity is your ability to deliver what you say you will do by the time you say you will deliver it. And, if you can’t deliver your work in the manner or time, you committed to, whether you communicate this to stakeholders with adequate notice.

When founders talk about how difficult it is to find co-founders and early employees, I think this is what we’re looking for - people with high PI.

People we can trust.

Having professional integrity is not the same as communication.

In my experience, someone who I would deem ‘high’ in PI can competently demonstrate the following:

• Good communication
• Ability to anticipate needs and challenges
• Self Awareness
• Courage to take accountability
• Willingness to learn and improve

PI works like a ‘meta skill’ built upon the competency of multiple other soft skills - of which communication is one of them.

Communication is important, but it’s not the most essential.

I’ve met plenty of great communicators whose actions don’t meet up with their words and whose words don’t meet up with their actions.

Finding those who can both adequately communicate and competently execute?

That, my friends, is the stuff of legends.