Leadership Skill

We've all questioned the strength of our leadership skills at one time in our career.  If you've ever had the chance to supervise or manage a group of individuals, then you've probably wondered if that group felt you were a leader.  You may have even tried to guess if peers around you feel you're a leader.  Perhaps you have even hoped that your boss sees the leadership skills that you possess.

Let's face it, to get ahead in the business world today you need to separate yourself from the pack.  Competition at work is fierce.  You can go to school, get a college diploma, and you can even get advanced degrees in very specialized areas.  We're not arguing against the importance of school; but in today's workplace, a well-educated individual is becoming commonplace.

Leadership Skill and Career Growth

If you have specialized technical skills, then they will only take you so far in your career.  That's what this article on leadership skills is going to address.  You might be recognized as a specialist, or even a subject matter expert.  But without good leadership skills, it is very likely that you are only qualified to reach the end of a "technical" career path.  There is even a term for people in those positions in an organization: individual contributors.  And for many of us, we can feel very successful wearing that label.

If you want more career growth options, then you need to demonstrate effective leadership skills.  Every hiring manager that fills an opening for a manager or supervisor hopes that person they are going to hire is a leader.  That's because even managers that have successfully demonstrated that they can deliver superior results can have their careers derailed by weak leadership skills.

Skills and Characteristics of Leaders

So what exactly are the characteristics and / or skills that are found in leaders, and how can they be learned?  Well, we've all heard the expression "natural born leaders" but it's hard to believe that genetics has much to do with true leadership ability.  It could easily be argued that individuals demonstrating leadership skills early in life are probably just emulating someone very close to them - a father or mother - someone that has subconsciously taught them leadership skills.

In fact, nearly everyone exhibits leadership skills or characteristics under certain situations.  This could happen in a work setting, at home or in the community.  These are skills that are developed and honed over a lifetime.  They grow in complexity as our personalities grow. The trick then is to accelerate the leadership skills development process, so that we are able to exhibit these characteristics early in our career.

This website has already published several articles that can help you to better understand the finer points of leadership.  We've provided hints on how to further develop these skills in the following publications:

Transformational Leadership

Our article on transformational leadership explains a concept that James MacGregor Burns developed when describing these types of leaders.  Specifically, the article covers the concepts of transformational leadership, transactional leadership, moral and amoral leaders.

Situational Leadership

Our article on situational leadership explains the four styles of leadership developed by Ken Blanchard: directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating.  We also review the situational leadership model developed in Daniel Goleman's emotional intelligence.  One of the key skills of situational leadership theory is the ability to flex your leadership style to the current work environment.

Leadership Styles

Finally, our article on Leadership Styles discusses the six leadership styles identified by Goleman.  In that article, you will find descriptions outlining the most appropriate time to use a particular leadership style.  That article concludes with some hints on how to become skilled in the art of mastering multiple leadership styles.

Leadership Skills Training Programs

If you're interested in developing your leadership skills in a more compressed timeframe, then you might want to take a look at our publication on Leadership Training.  Here you'll find some practical advice on the basics of leadership training programs, as well as where you can go to find some very effective executive leadership training courses.

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