Top soft-skills for 2019

The same as before
Emotional Intelligence
Empathy
Assertiveness
Inquisitiveness
Servant leadership
Influence
Persuasion
Negotiation

Let's be honest, even with all the new buzz words that gets thrown around with each new year how many new skills were required? We are essentially still doing what we have always been doing but just using a different approach. We are still planning, just in a different way. We are still facilitating but the sessions are called something else. We just adapt how we actually apply the soft skills we had in 1980, or should have had.

Pench -

While there may be no change to the types of soft skills required to be a successful project manager, the emphasis on specific soft skills may increase based on the context of a given PM's work.

For example, if you are purely managing virtual teams, specific soft skills such as active listening or virtual team building may need to be enhanced.

Kiron

Effective communication in environments using both digital and more traditional communication methods is something where I see many would do well to focus.

With phones, email, instant messaging systems, online collaboration tools, etc., not all tools are well suited for all types of information/communication. Mixing different generations of employees in the workplace, there are preferences for different tools. Combining those I see a lot of ineffective communication.

I think many people (myself included) can both work on choosing the most effective method of communication for different situations, as well as telling others when a different approach would be best. One of my personal irritants is when people think that just because my computer is on-line, I can drop everything for a long series of questions via IM. I personally can work on how I tell those people that now is not a good time and that IM is not the best Q&A forum for such lines of questioning.

Soft skills are soft skills. As Anton addressed, they can be given fancy names, but in the end, pretty much the same. Certainly, have garnered [seemingly] more attention lately. Absolutely, though, soft skills are critically important.