Getting from the ground floor to a corner office too often seems like a collection of industry skills. Learn finance, how to sell, run an office, hire smart, cut loose what doesn't work. And, these days, there's all the knowledge of artificial intelligence, bid data, and the resulting analytics that promise to deliver ever better profits.

Talk to an expert in moving up, though — a long-time executive recruiter like William Vanderbloemen, founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group and author of Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders From the Rest — and you'll hear about not the technical skills but the soft, human ones that make all the difference.

"Relationships are going to drive jobs in the future as STEM degree jobs get replaced by AI," Vanderbloemen bluntly tells GlobeSt.com. "People ruminate on what makes a successful employee, but that's like a lot of op-ed pieces that sound like cliches."