Digital Credentials Leadership
What soft skills do you need to launch a digital credentialing program at a tech company?
Starting in September of 2023, I was tasked with building a digital credentials program at CSG. During this time, I wrote ATD’s TD at Work guide on credentialing as well. Now that we are officially live, I’m happy to share some thoughts on leading an initiative like this.
The three biggest soft skills I leveraged were communication, humility, and vision.
Communication was hands-down the biggest skill because you have to socialize the idea to get support. After the pilot project’s initiation, the first task I planned was a listening tour. Originally, I was going to run a few group sessions to share our idea and hear initial feedback from stakeholders, but my manager encouraged me to speak to people individually, and allow them to invite other relevant parties into the conversations. Ultimately, I spoke with 57 stakeholders across the company from product owners to HR reps to IT admin. Asking “do you have any concerns about the program,” revealed some risks we were able to proactively mitigate.
I say humility because I couldn’t go charging in with my ideas. Listening to others and synthesizing their thoughts helped the program greatly, as other people had creative ideas that has not occurred to me. I had a loose framework in my mind going into the pilot, but did not get offended when the findings contradicted my initial ideas.
Vision came from a LOT of research. I interviewed leaders at other companies, investigated similar use cases, and read every academic and news article I could get my hands on. This gave me the confidence to innovate a unique solution for my company, and trust in my recommendations.
Servant leadership has been my style since I first became a community service program manager in 2015, and I think it really benefited me during the credentialing pilot and program launch.
