Leadership skills are crucial for career advancement.Technical skills can only go so far. Soft skills are the key to becoming a great manager.
Leadership skills take time to develop. It also requires more experience.Leading a group is a challenging job that requires many different abilities.
You will become a better leader if you develop these skills.
If you want to make your team successful, you must know how to deal with different issues, such as inter-team conflict, extroverts versus introverts, putting fires out, etc.
Let’s go through the different management skills that you need to be a better leader, along with some tips on how to develop each of these skills.
Leadership skills you need
1. Being Self-Aware
Self-awareness is the most important skill.
This skill is vital to the development and growth of the other skills on this list.
You cannot improve yourself unless you are aware of who you are.
Daniel Goleman is of the opinion that emotional intelligence is based upon self-awareness.
Self-awareness leads to self-regulation (one of Goleman’s five components of emotional intelligence) and empathy, which are key traits to positively influence those around you.
Self-awareness enables you to make quick and sound decisions. Leaders must be able make this type of decision.
When you know yourself, you will feel more confident about your decisions.
Self-awareness helps you identify your strengths and weakness, as well where you should focus your efforts.
How to Develop this Skill
Practice mindfulness regularly, it has been shown to be linked to self-awareness
Keep track of everything you do. Noting what happens can help you become more aware of yourself.
2. Leadership that inspires trustworthiness
Amy Cuddy is a Harvard Business School professor, and the author of “Presence”, who writes in her book, that when people first meet someone, they immediately ask two questions.
- Can I trust the person?
- Can I respect a person?
She found that respect is valued more in professional settings than intelligence and knowledge.
Cuddy believes that the ability to trust other people is what others will judge you on. They want you to be able to trust them.
Even if you have the most intelligent words, if they don’t trust them, people won’t listen to you.
How to Develop this Skill
You can’t get anything unless you give. Give your team the autonomy they need to show that you trust their abilities.
Tell your story so that others can get to understand you. Your vulnerability will make people trust you.
Spend more time with your team. Attend events or have lunch together. Spending time together with your team will help you to build trust and get acquainted.
3. Empathy
Empathy can be a very valuable skill, whether or not you’re in a leadership position.
Empathy from leaders would improve employee engagement.
Treating your team members with respect is the key to employee satisfaction. Understanding your team members is crucial to treating them with respect.
Empathy is a great way to better understand your team.
According to research by the Center for Creative Leadership CCL, empathy is positively correlated to job performance.
The study found those leaders who showed greater empathy to their team were viewed as more effective.
How to Develop this Skill
You can’t get something unless it is given to you. Give your team the autonomy they need to show that you trust their abilities.
Tell your story so that others can get to understand you. This vulnerability will make you more trustworthy.
Spend more time with your team. You can have lunch or go to an event at work together. Spending time together will help you build relationships and trust.
4. How to Delegate
It is hard to develop this skill, because most people have a difficult time letting go. It is a skill you need to develop if you want your team to respect you.
As a manager, you need to learn how let go. Although it’s difficult, it has an important impact on the morale and productivity of your team.
Autonomy and progress are dependent on people feeling motivated.
Motivation is quickly ruined by a leader who declares they will delegate their autonomy to others, but then doesn’t.
If you promise to delegate authority, then you must do it.
Leaders should be aware of small wins and the Progress Principle.
How to Develop this Skill
Learn to let go. You may not always have the answers or be in the loop. Steve Jobs said “It’s not logical to hire smart persons who tell them exactly what they should be saying.” We hire smart people who tell us what to say.
You should give your staff the chance to see their project through.
5. Giving Feedback
We’ve written a lot about how to give feedback to your team because it’s one of the most important things to do, but one of the hardest things to get right.
People react differently based on their personalities. Leaders should be aware of this when giving feedback.
When giving feedback you should consider the following:
- Focus on behavior, not individual
- Be specific
- Real-time feedback
How to Develop this Skill
Practice makes perfect. The more feedback you provide, the better you will get.
Use the feedback sandwiches. Be honest.
Use one-onone sessions for structured feedback.
6. Receiving Feedback
It is more important to receive feedback than to give it.
You won’t likely react negatively, or defensively.
You can improve your team’s performance by receiving constructive feedback.
You should ask your team if they provide feedback.
What is the reason for this? Do they feel comfortable? Encourage them to give feedback. You should. You will be a better leader.
How to Develop this Skill
Ask for feedback from your team. Tell your team that feedback is important.
Listen, don’t speak. In a stressful situation, your first reaction will be to defend yourself. Listen and understand.
Ask followup questions to get more details like “Just to make sure, when I did X, you felt…”
7. Communication Skills
Leaders must have excellent communication skills. Consider all situations where leaders will need to communicate effectively.
- Share your vision of the future
- Motivating your team
- Grin when you receive bad news
- Communication when someone quits a job or is fired
- Communicating with investors/stakeholders
Some of the biggest issues in the workplace come from lack of communication or miscommunication, so improving your communication skills is so important.
How to Develop this Skill
Improve your body language. You’d be surprised at how much your body language can influence the way you communicate.
Avoid filler words such as “um”, like, and “like”
Use a calm, peaceful tone.
8. Consistency
A study from Michigan State University found that having a boss that’s unpredictable is too stressful for them to handle.
In this study 100 workers from different companies completed surveys about their perceptions of unfairness over a period of three weeks. Employees who have unpredictable supervisors tend to be more emotionally depleted, frustrated and unhappy.
If you don’t, your credibility and respect will slowly disappear.
How to Develop this Skill
Your team should understand what you expect from them.
Communication is essential. Communication is key.