The library is a service-focused organization. As a result, in addition to having technical expertise, an information professional heading a library needs soft skills to deliver high-quality services to stakeholders and improve performance. This essay is the outcome of research done in academic institutions in South West, Nigeria, to identify the soft skill attributes that information professionals need in order to efficiently and successfully manage libraries, as well as to look at the soft skill attributes in information professionals. Studying the soft skill performance was done with stakeholders including students, non-teaching personnel, and teaching staff in mind. Questionnaires were distributed in the institutions located in six geographical location which University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti. From each institution 5 teaching staff, 5 non-teaching staff and 10 students were identified for the study and were asked to rate soft skill performance of Information professional of their respective institutions. The findings demonstrated that there are no appreciable differences in the soft skill performance of information professionals across the Southwest Nigerian academic institutions. Additionally, the study’s conclusion said that there is a positive association between information professionals’ performance in soft skills as reported by stakeholders and the soft competencies that all stakeholders from the institutions demand. The authors have provided some recommendations to enhance the performance of information professionals in the institutions with respect to soft skills based on the study’s findings.
Keywords: Nigeria, communication competencies, information professional's competencies, leadership competencies, soft competencies
