Leadership skills are not just for managers and bosses, everyone should consider leadership skills essential to support their day to day activities.
There are various definitions of leadership, however the one that I like the most defines leadership as a “process of influence, which maximises the efforts of others towards the achievement of a goal”.
Being a leader is not just about a title, it’s about having a positive influence on others, so they are keen to be a part of the action.
A colleague of mine who has an army background has a saying that goes along the lines of “whether someone is in a charge or not, when the bullets start flying, you know who the leader is because that’s who everyone looks to”. This is the epitome of leadership.
The 5 Critical Leadership Skills You Need To Master
1. Communication
It goes without saying that communication skills in any kind of relationship are critical.
Did you know that 91% of employees think their bosses lack this critical skill?
Source: https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/survey-91-percent-of-1000-employees-say-their-boss.html
When talking about communication, we mean all forms of communication including: active listening, providing feedback and being timely with information that you need to provide to you team.
2. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is managing your emotions, understanding their impact on others, as well as recognising the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence when managing ourselves includes being self-aware of our emotions, regulating these emotions and motivating ourselves. When we talk about emotional intelligence relating to others, this includes developing an understanding of others, and recognising their emotions in the workplace.
There are ways to improve your emotional intelligence including self reflection and evaluation of interactions – how did you react in situations, or to people person or the information they are sharing? Do you think before acting or speaking? Do you understand how your actions and words can affect others? By undertaking a review of yourself in situations, you can generally get a vibe for your level of emotional intelligence.
3. Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking applies not only to your role at work, but also to your personal life. Strategic thinking is about taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. It’s about understanding strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats either of yourself or your team. It’s about setting SMART goals, and organising appropriate resources to achieve these goals, and also being critical in your review of these things.
You don’t need creative to be a strategic thinker, you need to consider your short-term and long-term goals and what is needed to achieve these.
4. Decision Making
Decision making is a key leadership skill and you being able to problem solve and make decisions in a timely manner is extremely important. It’s also important to understand, that as a leader you will need to make difficult decisions for the overall benefit of team and organisation. Don’t procrastinate on implementing thees decisions – to delay is not demonstrating good leadership skills.
Furthermore, it is also my view that leaders need to have a comprehensive understanding about the impact of their decisions. I consider it similar to Newton’s Third Law – for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I believe this to be true when it comes to decision making in both our personal lives and at work. For every decision there will be a consequence, generally in both positive and negative ways. But don’t let this stop you making decisions, it means understanding all options available to you and selecting the decision with the best outcome for you and your team.
5. Self Management
Being a leader requires you to manage yourself. This mean setting your own goals, monitoring your performance and making adjustments where necessary. Learning to be accountable to yourself is essential when learning to lead. Start taking steps to today to plan, monitor and review your own performance. Be critical on yourself, so that you can learn how to self manage.
Conclusion
Developing your leadership skills can take time, but they are definitely something you should consider investing in. Being a lifelong learner is great leadership trait to have, and you should embrace the opportunity to improve your own skills.
What’s the one leadership skill you want to improve?
