Did you hear the joke about the extrovert accountant – he’s the one who looks at your shoes rather than his own. The days of the chartered accountant keeping a low profile are long gone and good communication skills have never been more important, so why are we so bad at it?

Today’s finance director is at the heart of strategy development and needs to build relationships with colleagues and clients in order to deliver bottom-line results. The technical skills of accountancy are, of course, vital and our ACA delivers rigorous training. But the need for ‘soft skills’ development has never been more relevant to the job.

There is nothing fluffy about soft skills in a competitive business environment. People today are expected to work across sectors, and to understand how business is conducted in emerging markets such as China, Russia and India.

Classic soft skills include effective communication, presentation skills, analytical thinking, diplomacy, change management, problem solving, team building, and listening. The latter are in short supply in many organisations. How often do you interrupt your colleagues and finish off their sentences? Ask anyone who has been involved in negotiation, and they know the value of engaging the other side to bring about a deal.

We experience a heightened awareness of communication styles when we want to buy something. Having just bought a house, I have become adept at interpreting estate agents’ patter. How do we sell ideas to our colleagues and clients, and is it talking at them or is it two-way communication? After all, the best bosses are the ones that listen – we all recognise that. Developing good communication, trust and respect among colleagues and clients will mean they are more likely to share knowledge. Communication is natural; we just like to do it on our own terms.

So there is a clear need for accountants to hone their soft skills, and not surprisingly a whole industry has emerged to offer a range of training courses to enhance communication skills. These can provide a very effective toolkit. But before you sign up, if you want to know whether you are a good communicator, watch yourself on video. The tape never lies.

Organisations increasingly want to hire people who can demonstrate they have strong communication skills in addition to their technical knowledge and qualifications. Hiring people who fit is a priority. Competency-based questions are commonly used in the selection process to find out whether a person has leadership skills or the ability to influence people, through positive behaviour. It’s also a standard part of most performance appraisals these days.

The validity of developing these skills alongside enhancing technical ability has been recognised by the ICAEW since we became the first institute to make continuous professional development (CPD) mandatory in January 2005. We understand that members are on diverse career paths requiring a range of skills. Training at various points throughout a career can provide tangible benefits. After all, there is nothing worse then being sent on a course to ‘fix’ a problem.

We moved away from a structured framework that emphasised formal inputs and instead have placed the focus on the quality of outputs. Accountants are now expected to reflect, act and demonstrate real business impact. Interestingly, we are seeing a real trend in people taking more courses and thinking through their personal development.

There are no boundaries in terms of the types of experience that accountants can use to explain how they have developed in their annual CPD declarations.

The emphasis is on how they can justify why an experience was worthwhile. So what one person gets out of a social event, for example, may have the same value, if not more, than attending a structured training course. What is really important is how individuals benefit professionally.

To help develop crucial soft skills, we launched a leadership essentials programme, designed to develop leadership potential and the skills required to enhance team effectiveness. Since the programme was first offered in 2005, more than 670 professionals have completed it.

The course culminates in a week-long development project working on the ground in Africa and is being used by many organisations as part of their corporate responsibility agenda. The programme is open to all accountants and a broad range of organisations have seen the benefit of taking part.

Going forward, increased emphasis on soft skills will form part of the new ACA syllabus, which will be introduced in September this year. The result is a substantially different qualification, in terms of its content and the fact that the structure has been changed to a modular, flexible system, making it more convenient for employers and trainees.

In the new qualification, trainees’ personal attributes and abilities, communication and interpersonal skills will be developed and assessed throughout their training contract, with regular feedback from their employer and tutors. There will be around 24 weeks of tutor contact time, during which time trainees can work through any skill issues which may arise.

The focus will be on improving commercial awareness, professional business skills, with specific focus on the soft skill set, alongside the core technical knowledge. Ethics will be given even greater prominence, and integrated into 11 of the exams, including the case study.

Wherever you are in your career, you should take a hard look at your soft skills to see if there’s anything you can do to improve the way you interact with people on a daily basis.

It’s definitely time to stop looking at your own shoes.

Dr Raymond Madden is head of learning and professional development at the ICAEW