Why Great Leaders Invest In Leadership Skills
Are Leadership skills that important?
Leadership skills are crucial because they help to align personal goals and dreams. They enable one to create and lead effective teams to achieve a vision. Leadership skills have aided to grow great families, businesses, and organizations for decades.
In the read below, we will define leadership skills and their examples. Give you the reason why leaders invest in them. Find out how you can develop your leadership skills and how to apply them in your daily life.
What are Leadership skills?
Leadership skills are competencies employed to organize yourself and others to achieve a goal. It involves leading and delivering projects, creating initiatives, and leading change effectively.
Examples of leadership Skills
Building relationships
Building relationships is the core skill of great leaders. It is easy to influence people you have great relationships with. It makes it possible to create a cohesive and engaging team. People feel valued, and in turn, collaborate and deliver more to the cause. It will also earn you respect as a leader.
Resilience
Great leaders know how to lead through change. They adapt well to change and know-how to navigate through challenges. They motivate their team to move forward in hard times.
Great leaders are comfortable exploring beyond their comfort zone with confidence. They innovate and strategize to put their teams at a competitive edge.
Ability to Mentor and Build people
Great leaders create more leaders. The ability to coach and train people requires leaders to think less of themselves. Mentorship involves teaching and giving timely feedback to their teams.
Leaders who value and mentor their teams inspire performance and commitment.
Decisiveness
A leader makes decisions all the time. The ability to make concrete and fast decisions helps to create progressive teams. Decisiveness requires critical thinking, deep research, consultation, and evaluation. As a leader, you are prone to make unpopular decisions. This is not uncommon among leaders who stand by their resolutions to convince teams to move forward. That is why building relationships is crucial. It helps when you have to make such decisions.
Problem-Solving And Conflict management
Conflict disrupts processes, teams, organizations, and societies. We have seen great societies, families, and organizations destroyed by conflict. To increase cohesion and performance, conflicts have to well be managed.
Great leaders have the ability to resolve problems before they escalate. They can either do it by themselves or find someone to handle it on their behalf. Managing conflict involves treating others fairly and solving problems before they escalate.
Dependability
People follow leaders they can count on during good and bad times. A dependable leader raises the confidence of the team and those around them.
Dependable leaders are trustworthy, consistent, and steadfast.
Negotiation
Negotiation is one skill that separates great leaders from the rest. Winning with people requires you to master how to converse and convince others to your side. You need this skill to win customers, partners, and your team over to your ideas.
Great leaders know that they can not do everything by themselves. They need others to win. To be a great negotiator, think about how you can make others win with your ideas. Be a good listener and create opportunities to solve other people’s problems first.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking leaders are easy to spot. They are rational, have high analytical skills, and are intelligent in their decision-making. They research and explore all possible outcomes in their decisions.
Effective Communication
Communication is a core skill in leadership. To create strong relationships and negotiate with people, a leader communicates effectively. Draw your vision, and convey what you require from the team to achieve the goal.
Effective communication is not complete without active listening. A leader listens more than they talk. Gauge the temperament of your people and find a way to deliver information agreeably.
Effective feedback
Your team needs to know their progress and the projects they are handling. In most cases, the team does not ask for it. They expect you to communicate.
Check and give feedback on issues that the team raises. Addressing concerns makes others feel appreciated. It also creates cohesion and motivation.
Negative feedback is the hardest to give, and many leaders struggle with this. Learn to deliver negative feedback to build and not to destroy your team.
Confidence
Leaders don’t have all the answers or the details on how things will turn out or the challenges ahead. They lead in times of uncertainty with confidence giving others hope for the future.
It is hard for someone to pass on confidence if they don’t believe in themselves first. People feel the aura of a confident leader and follow because they believe in him.
To build confidence, know who you are, stay true to your core values and focus on your purpose.
Emotional Inteligence
Great leaders empathize and listen to others. They understand their teams and what drives them. The ability to connect emotionally with others does not come naturally to everyone. That is why leaders need to cultivate the skill of emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence helps leaders to predict and resolve conflicts in their baby steps. Strife brings even strong teams down to their knees.
Understand that you are leading people from different backgrounds who have diverse emotional triggers. You are steering a team, yes, but sometimes, you have to guide people as individuals. Emotional intelligence enables you to connect and understand others better.
Integrity
To earn the trust of others, a leader must be honest and work with integrity. It makes your team more engaged and committed to the vision or goals that you want to achieve.
To earn trust from your others, be consistent and keep your word. Be truthful and follow through with your promises. Have strong values, stand by them, and make ethical choices. The aim is to aid your team or organization to have a positive image and put them on a competitive edge.
Consistency
Consistency is defining expectations. Do not keep your team guessing on what is coming up next. Let them know what they expect from you. Have a management style and keep it consistent.
Teams work well with structure. Let your team know what you expect from them and keep the rules. Do not bend the rules to favor yourself or a few. Inconsistency kills the team morale, which leads to rebellious behavior or sabotage. We are all human, and we look and crave fairness.
Organization.
Organizational skills help leaders to use resources effectively. These resources include human, time, and material resources. It involves setting goals, having a plan, monitoring, and evaluating the outcome.
Why do leaders need organizational skills? Leaders need organizational skills to schedule, prioritize, communicate tasks, and adapt to change. They help one to identify areas of improvement and make changes where necessary.
Delegation
Delegation allows a leader to allocate duties so that they can focus on more crucial matters. It is part of mentorship that creates more leaders within the team.
Great leaders know that they can’t do it all. They need help and that help is available within their teams. Delegation inspires teams when they know a leader trusts them with more responsibilities. It means he believes in them and their abilities to deliver. Who doesn’t want to be trusted with crucial responsibilities?
Self-awareness
Great leaders know their strengths and weaknesses. It gives them an insight into what they are capable of and where they need to improve. It also makes them understand the kind of people they need to achieve their goals. An exceptional leader recruits people with competencies that complement his weaknesses to build a strong team. No one has it all figured out.
Self-awareness also helps leaders to manage and interact with others. It gives a clear picture of one’s emotional intelligence. With self-understanding, one receives feedback and adapts to change with ease. It helps also helps to resolve issues and manage team emotions like a pro.
Passion and commitment
Your team will see right through you if you do not have passion and commitment to your vision. Enthusiasm begets commitment. These two work hand in hand. Love what you do and follow through with your goals and objectives.
Teams mirror their leaders. If a leader lack drives towards a vision, the team will not commit either. Choose your dreams and goals wisely. You can only commit to what you believe and love.
Time management
Time equals money. It is a crucial resource that can’t be duplicated but is easy to waste. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you can’t create even a single second of it. Time wasted is gone forever.
Great leaders know how to manage time against projects to ensure compliance. Time management involves planning and controlling the duration spent on tasks. Priority and focus are given to crucial matters.
Firm and Couragious
Great leaders know when to let their people have their way and when to say no. They are firm in their resolutions and goals. They have measures in place to correct anything or anyone who is off course without guilt or remorse.
Other leadership skills;
- Patience
- Empathy
- Active listening
- Reliability
- Dependability
- Creativity
- Positivity
- Effective feedback
- Team building
- Flexibility
- Risk-taking
- Ability to teach and mentor
- Expectation setting
- Seeing the big picture
- Diplomacy
- Confidentiality
- Professionalism
- Management
- Interpersonal skills
- Active listenening
- Analytical skills
- Detail-oriented
- Clarity
- Motivation
Why Every Leader Must invest in Leadership Skills
Every leader must invest in leadership skills to attract and retain the right talent, drive change and increase success chances in an ever-changing environment. A leader must position themselves to win in their personal and career life.
How To Develop Your Leadership Skill
Leadership Books and Podcasts
Learn more about leadership from books and podcasts.
There are many Leadership books where you can learn more about leadership. I recommend any book by John Maxwell. You can start with 25 ways to win with people.
You can also find podcasts videos online at no cost to elevate your leadership skills. Youtube talk shows and audiobooks have amazing leadership materials.
Leadership Training Cources And Workshops
Find physical or online courses and workshops in your area. Some you have to pay for, and some are free. You interact with great leaders and coaches who are ready to share their knowledge.
Most free leadership courses do not have a certificate. On some platforms, like Future Learn, you learn for free but pay for the certificate.
Volunteer To Lead Teams And Groups
Find time to volunteer and lead teams at work, in your church, or local area.
Online forums and groups like Facebook, Linked In, and WhatsApp offer Leadership opportunities. Offer to volunteer your services as an admin or coordinator. These groups and forums give you a chance to practice your leadership skills.
Create a Team To Lead With A Goal In Mind
Sometimes, you may not get a chance to lead an existing group. Create a team with a goal in mind. In my local area, Chamas are very popular in Kenya. You can create such a group and practice your leadership skills.
Alternatively, you can create a project and invite others to join in. Go for manageable projects to start with, like cleaning your residential area or park. Organize to visit the needy or a children’s home, and put your leadership skills at work.
Get Mentorship
Get mentorship from a leader you admire, or you find a leadership coach online at a fee. Do your due diligence before you settle for one.
Practise Leadership Skills In Your Daily Life
You don’t need to have a leadership position to practice leadership skills. How about your daily life as a playground.
Be the leaders your children need. Guide your students as a great leader would do. Help a colleague, a sister, a neighbor.
Look for opportunities around you to lead. You will see them if you are intentional.
How To Apply Leadership Skills To Your Personal Life
Show up in meetings on time
Showing up for work, family meetings, and appointments on time shows your time management and dependability skills.
Turn in your work on schedue
Turn in your work and projects on time. This shows dependability, organization, and time management skills.
Set monitor and evaluate your goals.
Develop your organizational, analytical, passion, and commitment skills
Coach and help those around you
Learn to empathize with people, develop your mentorship skills, create relationships and boost your emotional intelligence.
Volunteer To lead a team at home, in church or at work
Volunteering develops your emotional intelligence, building relationship, empathy, dependability, and trust, among others.
Help to stear a project.
Handling a project boosts your analytical, collaboration, organizational, research, time management, and conflict management skills. You will also learn how to build relationships.
Organize family gathering
Getting people together for family gatherings requires leadership skills. Take the initiative to plan and coordinate such events.
Conclusion
Leadership skills are crucial for young professionals and youth because they boost confidence.
One can apply leadership skills to lead self or others to attain a common goal.
They help one achieve success, lead others, grow businesses, and create cohesive societies with ease.
What leadership skills do you find challenging to practice? Share your answers in the comments below.