Congratulations! You’ve mastered the Circle of Knowledge, (and must be feeling pretty clever) and the Circle of Application, (which means you’re very practical too). Now, in Part 3 we arrive at the third – and perhaps the most underestimated – piece of the Quality Leadership Model: Soft Skills.

n our last blog we introduced the Quality Leadership Journey to refresh your memory.

If you don’t know where you are in your leadership journey, it’s easy to get stuck. You might find yourself overthinking, second-guessing and missing the chance to lead. 

But when you do know? You unlock clarity, confidence and momentum. And the power to shift from doing quality… to leading it.

Now that we’ve conquered the Circle of Knowledge, we’re feeling pretty good. We’ve got a strong foundation. We know the standards and sharpened our interpretation skills. We’ve learned our systems holistically. And the reason it feels good is because knowledge is powerful. But it’s only the start. It’s not enough on its own.

The first training I ever delivered was in a classroom.

That was the norm back in the ’90s – if you needed training, you packed a bag, booked flights, and blocked out days in your calendar. It was time-consuming, expensive, and often meant stepping completely away from your job to sit in a room and absorb as much as possible – only to return to a mountain of work waiting for you.

You’ve probably heard the saying, ‘knowledge is power’. And that’s absolutely true when it comes to quality leadership. Except in quality leadership, it’s not just power. Knowledge is your compass, your confidence and your credibility. It’s your foundation and your base.

Everyone starts somewhere. And everyone can grow. But you need to know where you are, so you know what to focus on next. The quality leadership journey is the map that helps you locate where you are and what’s next.