Business skills?

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I'm in a business class and the teacher says that to be a leader in business you need "people skills." Like you need to be good at public speaking and enthusiastically talking with people, etc. Does anyone have experience being a business leader when you don't have traditional "people skills?"

Bill Gates didn't exactly have people skills.

It's a skill which helps, yes, in a lot of business situations. But it's not mandatory. Especially if you're not looking to work in face-to-face sales (although B2B is surprisingly calm and logical in comparison) or be an out-there huge face of a company. Business skills can help take you beyond lower-level pure technical roles and into things like project management, deep contract analysis, and business strategy - roles which don't necessarily have an overwhelming focus on people skills.

Elon Musk is the obvious one that comes to mind. In fact I think he actually stated he is on the autism spectrum. But he’s done pretty well regardless.

I have done ok in terms of business skills within the tech sector (which tends to have a more autism friendly culture). I managed several teams over the years and recently started my own company. I had to work hard on communication in my 20s and still struggle at times. But I make up for it in other ways.

Focus more on your strengths and people will be more likely to forgive not-so-perfect social skills.

Being good at business requires soft skills in many scenarios.

The ability to mix with people in business meetings is essential. The ability to manage employees if one is in charge of employees is essential.

Business negotiation, business related (telephone) calls and marketing one's business all requires people skills.

Business is an art in some respects, which is why business qualifications at degree level are typically "bachelor of arts" rather than "bachelor of science" qualifications.

I am a Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Organizational Management specialized in General Business, and a Master of Business Administration. I have spent over a decade as a manager, team leader, and on-boarding trainer.

Soft-skills matter. People-skills matter. You don't have to be "Captain Charisma" who charms everyone they meet - but it's generally a good idea to be able to effectively communicate and interact with others - sometimes on their terms rather than yours. You don't have to be a great public speaker - most people aren't - but it is highly advantageous to be capable of addressing a group, however small or large. You don't have to appeal to all people all the time all at once - but you should be able to "read a room" to some degree, and interact with at least the specific audience you are trying to reach, however small or large - whether it's one-on-one in a private room, or in front of a group.

People who succeed despite lacking social skills usually have gobs of money, with which to pay someone else to use their social skills as a proxy. A "spokesman". Or the money attracts the greedy despite the lack of social graces.

Individuals such as Bill Gates or Elon Musk were born rich to influential parents. Birth-lottery opened many doors for them just by proxy of their inherited privilege - doors which the average person usually needs to charm negotiate impress and/or fight their way through.

For the most part, in the business world, every skill you can get your hands on, and leverage effectively, is to your benefit.

You don't need an inane amount of charm when it came to leading a business -- but that will help if you're self employed who does your own end product.

Overall, you will need clear communications.
Also, knowing your boundaries and enforcing around any communication issues you have.

Being the one to run a business likely requires good delegation.
Thus hiring someone who knows who to hire (someone you have to judge if this person won't backstab you), hiring a secretary, hiring someone who can take care of ads, some representative, someone who will manage the numbers and logistics, someone who will work the end product, etc.
Really, unless you're an exception; one cannot simply just do them all.

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"Overall, you will need clear communications. Also, knowing your boundaries and enforcing around any communication issues you have."

This! I've had 'charming' CEOs and I've had 'functional robot' CEOs. I'd much rather work for the latter. The two that were charming were terrible at actually communicating anything useful. Or they did the chinese whispers thing (I'll tell one employee and hope they share that info with the right people accurately - which didn't happen). It's incredibly difficult to work for someone like that.

You just need the ability to view the business as a machine with the different components and then share necessary information with the people that need it when they need it so they can do their own job/s efficiently. You don't need to be able to actually do all the individual jobs (although it helps when you first start out and/or having a general understanding of what those employees are doing and need from you).

Sales is a different role and I'd say that does require more 'charm'. With sales you are trying to convince rather than just share information. I'm trying to learn that stuff now and it's a very different way of thinking/communicating.