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Essentially, leadership skills are the behaviors that you would exhibit when placed in various situations. That's the foundation for various leadership theories such as situational leadership. Assessing your leadership style can help you not only in identifying your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, but also in developing your leadership skills.
Leadership Skills Defined
So what exactly are good leadership skills? One way to answer this question is through this simple statement:
Good leadership skills are the behaviors that allow you to get the results you're after, while at the same time positively motivating your followers.
Now while this might sound like an easy rule to follow, in practice it's not all that simple. Many "leaders" achieve remarkable short term results at the expense of the long term morale of employees. This article on leadership skills is going to avoid a discussion of that type of approach. We're going to focus on identifying leadership skills that should provide both short-term and long-term results that are sustainable.
Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Skills
Daniel Goleman and his approach to Emotional Intelligence provided us with a great deal of insight into the types of leadership skills we're seeking. That's because by its very nature, leading other individuals is all about successfully interacting with people. Emotional intelligence helps us to understand the dynamics of those interactions.
The core leadership skills that we all need as potential and existing leaders can be summarized via the following five attributes. It is via these five attributes, or skills, that we are able to manage not only ourselves, but our interactions with those around us. Understanding these competencies allow us to recognize the skills that will make us successful.
Self Awareness
Self awareness is our ability to understand what makes us who we are at work or at home. It is a leadership skill that allows us to understand not only our own emotions, but also the impact they can have on our work performance and our relationships with coworkers.
Self awareness is the ability to understand our own emotions, moods, and motivations.
Self Regulation
While the leadership skill of self awareness asks us to take a deep look inside ourselves, the skill of self regulation is the ability to control our emotions that are counterproductive to achieving our goals.
How often have you observed a manager / leader and thought to yourself - they are their own worst enemy? Did they allow their emotions and impulsive behavior to lead them down the wrong path? Self regulation is the skill used to control the moods, impulses, and emotions that can hurt our relationships with coworkers.
Motivational Skills
Motivation can be an entire topic unto itself. In fact, we have an article dedicated to motivation and leadership. We define motivation as the drive or passion that goes beyond money or status. With that in mind, motivation can take two forms:
- Extrinsic Motivation - this is the motivation that comes from external sources, such as a manager's recognition for a job well done.
- Intrinsic Motivation - this is the motivation that comes from within, often referred to as self motivation or internal motivation.
As a leader, it's important to develop your skill at identifying what motivates yourself as well as those around you. Finding out what motivates others is often accomplished by trial and error. There are a number of approaches suggested to improve this skill in the motivation article referenced earlier.
Empathy Skills
Empathy is perhaps the most important leadership skill that involves your relationship with others. Empathy is the leader's ability to understand the other person's point of view. Many leaders-in-training mistakenly believe that sympathy is the same skill as empathy - it's not.
Empathy is your ability to truly put yourself in the other person's shoes and understand how they are feeling. It's the ability to understand the impact change can have on someone else, and taking their feelings into consideration before making a change.
Social Skills
The last leadership skill we're going to discuss is social skills. To be an effective leader you need to socialize with others. In this way, social skills are very much like effective networking skills in a work setting.
Your followers need to understand that you're a human being - just like them. You need to take an interest and listen when employees talk about their families or loved ones because they play an important role in their lives. You need to be able to develop and guide others, and you do that using the rapport you develop via social skills.
Development of Leadership Skills
Now that we have a foundation in the understanding of the types of leadership skills that are important in the workplace, we can move onto a discussion of the development of leadership skills. These are the techniques you can practice to help you become a more effective leader.
Golden Rule at Work
Perhaps the single most important leadership skill you can practice nearly every day is treating others the way you wish to be treated. Unfortunately, among the chaos we find at work, this is not always as easy as it sounds.
Pressures to improve the "bottom line" and "just get it done" are two examples of attitudes that might prevent us from following this golden rule. As leaders in an organization, we need to strike a balance of short term results and long term job satisfaction. You need to practice this balance every day by asking yourself this question: Is this the way I would want to be treated?
Autocratic and Coercive Leadership Styles
While these two leadership styles have a place in certain situations, the autocratic leadership style and the coercive style are arguably the two most destructive styles a leader can practice.
Autocratic leaders, by definition, make all the decisions themselves and take responsibility for the results achieved. Autocrats can be extremely hard to work for over the long haul, and are characterized by the statement "just do as I say."
Coercive leaders were found to have the most negative affect on the workplace climate. This type of leader demands immediate compliance, and uses threats to pressure coworkers into compliance. If you're a leader that practices one of these two leadership styles, you better have a good reason - such as the need to turn around an organization.
Coaching and Teaching
Another leadership skill you'll want to develop has to do with coaching and teaching others. This is especially effective in a situation where you might be viewed as an expert. As a leader, you should be extremely interested in the growth and development of the people directly reporting to you.
The benefit of coaching and teaching others is threefold. For example, you have an opportunity to develop a replacement for yourself from a succession planning standpoint. You can also rest easier when away from the office when you know you have a good backup. Finally, many employees like the challenge of new assignments, and the act of teaching and learning can motivate many individuals.
You can develop your coaching skills by working directly with others. Or you can simply ask them if they have any questions, or would like some help with an assignment.
Delegating Tasks
Here we're talking about true delegation of tasks - not dumping work on your coworker and running away. The proper delegating of tasks by leaders will not only result in an additional learning experience for the follower, but also serves as a signal that you trust in their abilities.
You can develop your delegating skills by starting small, assigning tasks you're certain can be successfully completed on time and with acceptable quality. As you and your direct reports become more comfortable and confident, you can begin delegating more important and difficult tasks.
Democracy at Work
The final leadership skill we're going to discuss is what we're calling "democracy at work." This is simply encouraging independent thinking, and allowing coworkers to believe they have a say in the direction that the team is going.
There are a couple of things you need to watch out for when practicing this particular leadership skill. The first thing has to do with timing. The democratic leadership style can often result in delays in getting work done. By allowing others to "vote" on how and what to do, you need to be prepared for the debate and dialog that often comes with this freedom to speak up and be heard.
As was the situation with delegating tasks, an example of how to practice this skill is in order. You can start with a relatively trivial question or assignment and gather your direct reports together and ask them their opinion on how to proceed.
This should not be a matter so trivial that their reaction is "why bother asking us this question?" Again, think of how you'd feel if your manager asked you this type of question.
Final Thoughts on Developing Leadership Skills
Developing any skill takes practice; especially if you've never done something like this before in your career. Remember your goal here - you want to be a better leader, and that can take time.
You might also want to take a look at several of the articles we've already published concerning leadership styles and situational leadership. These publications will outline the attributes of the leadership styles discussed, and also help you to understand when each style is most effective.
Finally, don't be afraid of making mistakes. Good leaders take calculated risks, and therefore will make mistakes. Learning from those mistakes is a valuable lesson in leadership. When you cannot remember what to do in a certain situation, you always can fall back on this one simple principle - follow the Golden Rule.
About the Author - Developing Leadership Skills
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