Soft Skills Development in Dynamic and Unstable Work Environments: Reflections of Business Leaders from Egypt and Middle East

Work environment became very challenging in 2023 due to the upsurge in automation, artificial intelligence applications as well as turbulent economic and political factors that corporates had to endure. This paper reflects on the experience of business leaders in the Middle East with reference to overall performance results, teams' effectiveness and applied soft skills development mechanisms in year 2023. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with business leaders of 22 national and multinational organizations operating in 12 different business and service sectors in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Leaders of 19 out of 22 organizations confirmed that they lack clear soft skills development mechanisms. Soft skills development is especially needed when it comes to staff and leaders' enablement and empowerment to manage change, resolve complex business situations, collaborate effectively and fulfill assigned goals in challenging environment.