Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Rachel Wells is a writer who covers leadership, AI, and upskilling. Some call them soft skills. Others call them power skills. But ...

Your job performance is a combination of your "hard skills" — your technical knowledge and hands-on work product — and your intangible "soft skills," which are taking the American workplace by storm.

When employees have significant gaps in their soft skills there are significant negative consequences: Potentially good hires are overlooked. Good hires go bad. Bad hires go worse. Misunderstandings ...