ChatGPT won’t take this job: The most in-demand skill is something only humans can do

The top job skill for 2023?

Despite some 10,000 daily headlines about how AI will take our jobs, the most sought-after skill has nothing to do with technology. According to LinkedIn’s new report on the most in-demand skills for 2023, it’s management. And it’s followed closely by other decidedly human skills: communication, leadership, and teamwork.

Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on an anti-manager rant, saying, “I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers managing the people who are doing the work.” Many viewed it as foreshadowing for the layoffs that were coming after the company announced it would cut 11,000 jobs in November 2022.

It’s easy to hate on middle managers. They’re in a pretty miserable position, after all. And it’s only gotten worse over the last few years as middle managers have been tasked as the go-betweens for upper-management desires (return to office, and more done with fewer resources, for example) and employee demands (better work-life balance and flexibility, to name a few).

And part of the problem with middle managers might be that many are simply not suited for their jobs. The 1969 book The Peter Principle gave a name to the phenomenon that’s gone largely unchanged, and one that we’ve all experienced: Employees being promoted to management roles based on their success in previous jobs, regardless of whether they have the skills or even desire to be managers. And perhaps Zuckerberg’s disdain for certain levels of middle managers stems in part from the same frustration that employees feel when they have an ineffective boss.

It seems kind of obvious, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Companies and individuals can invest in people-management training for those who genuinely want to be managers and find other ways to reward and advance employees who are good at their jobs but have no desire to be managers.

If the popularity of articles offering leadership and management advice is any indication, so-called soft skills like emotional intelligence, management, and communication are exactly the skills that many of us need most, AI revolution or not.

In the changing world of work—and especially in this new uncertain economic environment—we can’t expect to replace the efficiency of machines, but we can do something AI can’t: Learn how to lead with empathy and how to motivate and listen to our colleagues and employees. In short, if we want to keep our jobs, we need, perhaps, to learn to be more human.