I’m on a hiding to nothing here, aren’t I? To be honest, I will probably return many times to this theme – because the hardest of soft skills will depend on both the people involved and the circumstance. It will all be about context. But I don’t care and am going to go for it!
Trust.
It’s hard to define, except in it’s absence. And you can’t put a finger on it. It’s easier to say what it isn’t, and say when it’s gone wrong.
The problem is, it takes time and effort to develop. And it is so volatile – it has a very low boiling point. Once it is breached, it takes a lot of fixing. And some people take longer to heal than others. It seems to me like a ball of string you have laboriously been winding back into a ball. If trust is lost, it is like dropping the ball of string. It goes on and on and rolls away from you so easily. The only thing to do is to stop it unravelling as quickly as you can, then start the slow process of winding it back into a trusty ball shape.
I tend to agree with the lovely caption below. It does take courage – lots of it. But I also have to say I don’t give people too many chances. Once I have lost trust it is hard to win me back.
is that why I think it is the hardest of the soft skills?
An image from my friends at www.trainerslibrary.com
Soft Skills for Hard Times 
I will back you on this one Phil. ‘Trust’ is the hardest soft skill. I saw a quote somewhere that summed it up for me ” Trust comes on foot and leaves by horse”. I also like Peter Lerangis version- “Trust is a fragile thing – difficult to build, easy to break. It cannot be bargained for. Only if it is freely given it can be expected in return”