The five surprising skills you’ll need to get a promotion this year
The third skill is collaborative intelligence. This may seem like something from the future, but learning how to work alongside AI agents and automated robots to make the most of emerging technology will be a key competency employers will be hiring for.
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This growing field of ‘people-inclusive’ AI will separate workers who could benefit from it from those whose jobs are at risk. This also means acknowledging that there are parts of our job that robots can do better and areas where humans excel.
The fourth much-needed skill is learning How to be better in conflict. I’m currently writing my next book on this important topic, talking to dozens of experts, and marveling at how bad most of us are at this.
Learning how to embrace it and sit with the tension rather than instinctively running away from it can transform your career and personal life. Further data from LinkedIn revealed that, outside of AI literacy, conflict management is the fastest-growing skill professionals should invest in to get ahead.
The last skill of 2026 is perhaps the hardest: forget to learn. It is the art of consciously letting go of habits, processes, frameworks, and ways of thinking that no longer fit the current environment.
This can be difficult because we are hardwired to repeat behaviors that worked in the past, but as technology and society change too quickly for traditional careers to keep up, employees who advance will be the ones who adapt to where we are going.
These five interconnected skills—judgement, storytelling, collaborative intelligence, conflict management, and learning—are the new building blocks on which the future workforce will be built.
You may not need all of them today, but if you start developing your skills in just one of these areas, you’ll be in a better position to deal with some of the changes to the way we work that are currently coming your way.
Tim Duggan is the author of: Worc Backward: The Revolutionary Way to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter timduggan.substack.com
