Leadership skills are some of the most sought-after soft skills in every professional domain. Strong leadership skills prove vital in a workplace, whether you’re at the brink of starting your career or an established team leader. These skills are regarded as a valuable asset for taking your organization to new heights.

As corporations progressively adjust to the dynamic changes of the Covid-19 pandemic, leadership has also taken some paradigmatic shifts. It is no longer about just managing a team in the office but adapting to a changing environment too. Efficient business leaders must now possess the qualities necessary to keep their team intact.

Let’s find out more about these qualities and skills.

What is Leadership?

Leadership refers to the ability to lead teams and deliver projects. Strong leaders encourage initiatives and empower others. They possess excellent communication skills, delegate, and handle responsibilities effectively. Change management and flexibility are also some of the must-have traits for leaders to deal with workplace environments.

While managers execute a plan, leaders create a company vision. To have a more enhanced view of the difference between leadership and management, the best way to go forward is to create a stunning slide deck. SlideModel offers a custom-made manager vs. leader template to explain the terms. Good leadership focuses on the inter-personal as well as intra-personal development of colleagues.

What Makes a Good Leader?

69% of millennials believe there is a lack of leadership skills development in their workplace.

While 7% of business organizations face a significant leadership gap, only 14% of CEOs have leadership talent. With such shocking statistics, you must be curious to know the qualities of a good leader.

Below are four leadership qualities that you will need to become a good leader:

Resilience

To become a great leader, you must have resilience. Professionals having leadership skills hardly ever quit. They remain resilient under pressure and sustain their energy levels. Their motto consists of coping and adapting to changes.

Resilience enables them to bounce back from setbacks and proves to be a crucial characteristic to be a stand-out leader. Leaders must cultivate determination to thrive and advance.

Empathy

A whopping 79% of company employees quit their jobs as leaders fail to appreciate their work. Hence, empathy plays a huge role in good leadership. Empathy implies emotionally understanding the feelings of others.

Leaders must put themselves in the position of their employees to understand their efforts and appreciate them. Workplaces built on an empathy culture boost the likelihood of employees feeling happy while doing the job. Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, believes in winning the hearts and minds of employees for a successful business.

Goal-Setting

Leaders take charge of articulating the company vision. They form plans and delegate the task of executing them to managers. Effective leaders create the future and keep everyone on board with short and long-term goals.

Setting some SMART goals will help you to hit the bullseye in prioritizing tasks. Follow ideologies of leadership skills examples like Bill Gates, Indira Nooyi, and others to excel more. Tuckman’s Team Development Model Template will also come in handy for leaders setting their team goals.

Data-Driven

The world runs on data today. Leaders excel by acing data analytics for making operational decisions. Leveraging data assists leaders to possess actionable insights driving profits and effective results.

Data helps them to drive accountability and improve their decision-making abilities. It also helps in assessing the performance of the company and employees according to the established KPIs.

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Absolutely Essential Skills for Leaders

Top-Notch Communication

To be a successful leader, you must communicate your thoughts with clarity to your employees. You should explain the organizational goals and delegation of tasks lucidly. 85% of employees feel motivated when their management updates them regularly on the company news.

Keep tabs on departmental and one-to-one communication through all possible mediums. A leadership skill list involves team building requiring leadership traits like good communication skills and impressive conflict resolution. Keep the communication flow steady.

Here are some communication aspects for leaders to develop:

• Story narratives
• Active listening
• Verbal and non-verbal communication
• Clarity and conciseness
• Explaining without ambiguity
• Observing body language

Promote Diversity and Inclusion

A diversity and inclusion policy at your workplace can help your leadership and organization to hire top talents. It leads to the promotion of a safe workplace with innovative results. Nowadays, a leader will be tested on their ability to deliver a connected and inclusive employee experience.

Great leaders ensure their colleagues operate freely and provide an unbiased workplace environment. The Covid-19 pandemic showed the importance of leadership by caring for others. Recognize talent and lead them with a policy of equity and equality.

Strong Motivation

Leaders must continually inspire their employees to achieve new heights and challenge themselves with new tasks. Motivation is not just about paying increased pay checks to employees but rather motivating them intrinsically. Your employees should have the feeling of levelling up your organization.

Here are a few ways to cultivate motivation among your employees:

• Rewards and recognition
• Employee autonomy
• Mentoring and convincing
• Persuasion
• Goal setting
• Employee assessment

Flexibility

A workplace is always susceptible to last-minute plan shifts and changes in working systems. Leaders, thus, must possess flexibility in facing the challenges that come their way. Employees tend to appreciate a leader’s ability in accepting changes and solving the problem creatively.

Constructive feedback forms one of the critical aspects of flexibility where leaders should regularly collect feedback. It will help you to bring changes in your leadership style.

Some flexibility points to look out for are:

• Learning new skills
• Improvising and negotiating
• Adaptable
• Critical and creative problem solving

Delegation

If you keep too much on your plate, you will end up having burnout with reduced productivity. To be a good leader, learn the art of delegating responsibilities and tasks effectively. Delegation is a sign of a critical thinker and a strong leader.

You can start by identifying the skills of your employees and assigning suits based on their capabilities. Meanwhile, you can choose to focus your energy on building new ideas to lead your company. Be mindful of cultivating time management skills to keep all your tasks on track.

Creative Mind

Exceptional leaders must learn to think outside the box in today’s competitive world. Try to approach problems in a non-traditional way that might lead to a better outcome. Choosing a conventional and risk-averse route may feel comfortable but going out of your comfort zone will expand your horizons and help your company as well.

Creative thinking skills include:

• Pattern identification
• Innovation
• Analytical and cognitive flexibility
• Broad thinking
• Imaginative

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Developing good leadership is an ongoing process and requires relentless effort. With novel challenges in companies worldwide, this is the age of a new leadership era. I hope this blog post will be your perfect guide to help you hone and nourish your leadership skills and excel in your organization. Happy leading!

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