Leadership Skills you MUST master…
Mastering certain leadership skills is vital to your success as a leader. While leadership traits such as character, integrity, and authenticity are important, so too are leadership skills. But which ones are most important? Here, in no particular order, is my take on the five most important leadership skills you need to focus upon:
- Listening – So many leaders today are advocates for their vision, they forget that listening to what others have to say will provide them with invaluable insights into how well their message is being heard. Spend about 60% of your time actively listening.
- Team Building – To develop this leadership skill, focus your attention on how you create “oneness” within the team. Create a unifying goal for your team, then deliberately put people to work together in pairs, trios, and larger groups to work on achieving the goal.
- Facilitation – Build your facilitation skills by studying how the best facilitators do it. This is especially important when you chair team meetings.
- Time Management – Build your time management skills by focusing your attention on prioritizing actions on a daily basis.
- Coaching – Coaching is a one to one leadership skill that builds your connection with team members. Remember, while coaching can be used as a remedial tool, by doing so you run the risk of making it a stigma to receive coaching. The vast majority of coaching should be aimed at building strengths, not fixing weaknesses.
So there you have it, my top five leadership skills. Develop these and watch as your leadership style takes on a new form which will help you rise to the top in terms of leadership performance.
Yup, it’s an undeniable fact that every leader must be good at listening skills to ensure seamless communication with the rest of the team. My son is considering applying for a sales manager job at his office this year. I hope he gets some guidance from a trainer before pursuing the goal.