Top 7 Key Leadership Skills Must Have in Leader for 2023
Most people, during their working lives, encounter leaders who produce quality work and others who are significantly less effective. In some companies, an outdated understanding of management style and hierarchy still dominates. Work instructions, strength, and dominance justify leadership positions.
Being able to work as a manager often means achieving a career goal. Only one thing must not happen in this position: resting on one's laurels. In modern companies, a good team leader has to develop positive leadership qualities and demonstrate them daily. This includes further development of skills acquired through qualification and further training.
Through competence and empathy, managers enable their employees to complete tasks successfully.
Managers have to make decisions. Critical decisions will not be absent. So that these can be taken in the interest of the company, knowledge, rationality, and assertiveness are required. Only if you are convinced of your decisions and can convincingly convey them to your team will they be successfully implemented.
Leadership qualities require certain character traits such as empathy, creativity, and the ability to work in a team. But that alone is not enough to distinguish yourself in the long term. The following seven tips will show you how to develop leadership qualities and use them specifically for personal development and employee motivation.
Top Leadership Skills Must Have in Leader
1. Identify and analyze leadership qualities.
To understand how to develop leadership qualities, one must first recognize and analyze them. The most important characteristics that characterize a manager include the following:
The development of a strategy to achieve them.
The strategy should not be developed solely based on management specifications but with the employees who contribute their specialist knowledge. Achievements will be reflected in an increase in motivation.
Communication is a crucial factor in achieving results and implementing goals. Modern companies use hybrid working models and employ people worldwide. Leadership skills can only be developed efficiently if, as a team leader, you have the knowledge and technical capabilities to use modern collaboration tools. In addition to using innovative technologies, honest communication with all team members is one of the human factors in developing leadership skills. Regular feedback of customer and employee must also allow for the possibility of constructive criticism.
Criticism or differing opinions can lead to conflicts. Recognizing and solving these is one of the important factors in developing leadership skills.
After all, decisions have to be made. Whoever learns leadership qualities must face this process. Entrepreneurial thinking and acting are indispensable parts of such an activity. Once you have identified the most important leadership qualities, understanding them is next.
2. Learning to understand leadership as a job and calling
Only some employees are suitable for managerial positions. In addition to the appropriate professional qualifications, certain character traits are an important prerequisite for a good team leader. These include passion, integrity, self-confidence, empathy, solution orientation, willingness to innovate, and the ability to learn, which are particularly important. Such qualities can be developed if you are willing to do so.
Leading a team is not to be understood as an activity that can be mastered alongside several other tasks but as a profession and calling. To answer the question of how to develop leadership skills, one has to accept that leadership tasks require the same attention as technical work.
When looking for solutions for developing leadership qualities, the focus should initially be on a kind of "self-management." Only if you succeed in organizing your working day will you be able to survive as a leader in a team organization. The use of time management for everyday work is just as important as planning and organizing your appointments. Learning how to organize your daily work contributes to managing a team efficiently.
3. Comprehensive communication is an effective way to develop leadership skills.
Leadership skills are developed significantly by using all available communication channels. Communication is the key to goal-oriented teamwork. All team members must be equally involved in the communication. This is not always easy when employees work remotely, but there are technical solutions. Powerful software tools can be used to ensure that all employees are provided with the appropriate information they need to carry out their work tasks. The exchange of experiences is facilitated by setting up virtual meeting rooms and conducting video conferences. In addition to technical aids, personal willingness to communicate and responsiveness are among the most important factors in developing leadership qualities. As a team leader, constantly monitoring your attitude towards communication with employees is important. Adopt a positive attitude and transfer it to team members in discussions and when assessing tasks and objectives.
Learning to listen actively and respond to employees' opinions is an indispensable part of developing leadership skills. Communication is only sometimes harmonious and consensual. In such cases, leadership qualities are characterized by the fact that conflicts or mistakes are not addressed reproachfully. Rather, objective and constructive solutions to problems should be found together with the team.
4. Develop customer orientation and set an example for your employees.
Just a few years ago, many executives were far removed from the needs of their customers and the direct work of the marketing and sales team. Even if you are not active in either of the two mentioned areas, as a modern company manager, you should develop your customer orientation and set an example for your employees. Companies can only be successful in the long term if they focus on the needs and wishes of their customers because only satisfied customers will create added value for the company and ultimately secure your employees' jobs.
To establish a customer-oriented corporate culture, the initiative must come from all areas and all levels of management. For example: How did Apple become one of the leading technology companies? They have geared their new and innovative products to the needs of consumers. Management realized that customers would be willing to pay more if mobile devices become more user-friendly. Within a few years, Apple has become one of the most valuable publicly traded companies.
When it comes to developing leadership qualities that result in sustainable customer satisfaction, objective criteria for evaluating satisfaction are essential. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used for evaluation. There are several methods of measuring and evaluating customer success KPIs. The analysis of such customer success indicators allows conclusions to be drawn about success with customers. Leaders need to develop the technical skills to make such analyzes and translate the conclusions into actions for team tasks. This, in turn, requires a constant learning process for managers, as the next section on improving leadership qualities clarifies.
Also read : How to convert Leads to Customer ?5. Improving leadership qualities through a constant learning process
The demands on managers are changing faster today than ever in economic development. Awareness of the latest trends and demonstrating competence to employees requires constant further training. Leaders are characterized by perseverance and determination when seeking solutions or overcoming problems. A good manager is willing to keep himself mentally fit and bring his professional qualifications up to date. There are several ways to do this, such as taking part in special training courses for managers. A great way to develop leadership skills while supporting upskilling within your team is to build a company-wide knowledge base. With the right software, the information and data everyone involved has collected during the project work can be saved, sorted, and then systematically evaluated.
A completely new trend topic is digital coaching via an app. In contrast to further training seminars in larger groups, it offers coaching as individual support. Your behavioral patterns are first analyzed, and based on this, special solutions for individual support are developed. The goal is to position yourself clearly as a manager with a stable value system that benefits the entire team's success.
6. Support the development of the team.
One of the key factors determining how leadership skills are developed is the ongoing nurturing of the qualities of each team member. To do this, you need to be open to change. Continuity often means a standstill. New projects sometimes require a team reorganization or a reallocation of tasks. One of how leadership skills are developed is by giving employees personal responsibility, thereby allowing them to get involved creatively in project management. In this way, you increase the motivation and self-confidence of your employees and, at the same time, ensure respect as a manager.
Another effective way to develop leadership skills is to support the professional development of your employees.
To avoid the employees' stagnation on the current knowledge level, it is important to set changing tasks during a project. A moderate increase in workload will prompt your employees to prioritize and improve their time management. The measure aims not to overwhelm the team members with tasks but to strengthen self-organization and efficiency.
7. Show discipline and transfer it to the entire team.
Discipline is one of the basic qualities that employees expect from their leaders. The good news is that discipline can be learned. Plan appointments in good time, coordinate them with all employees involved, and make sure you meet deadlines. An online appointment calendar, which can be viewed by the team and contains all internal appointments, is an important basis for discipline. Even if the manager is not always able to maintain their appointment calendar themselves due to a large number of tasks, the coordination with the assistant must be carried out in such a way that once binding appointments have been made, they are only rescheduled in really urgent exceptional cases. Disciplining yourself will make it easier to convey this important quality to your employees.
Discipline is closely linked to punctuality. When considering how to develop leadership skills, this connection should be considered. Once a meeting has been scheduled, not only must it be held that day, but it must also start on time. All participants must be on time for the meeting, and the team leader is no exception. But not only the punctual start part of meeting an appointment but also the fixed end. A well-prepared agenda and time specifications for individual items on the agenda offer the best conditions for adhering to the planned time frame.
FAQ
What is the most important leadership competency?
The most important leadership skill is using cognitive skills to solve problems. Key cognitive skills that help achieve organizational goals include planning, attention, imagination, willpower, and creativity. Strengthening and developing these skills requires a constant learning process and the transfer of knowledge to employees.
What are the core competencies of a manager?
The core competencies of a manager include the following:
Communication skills include the ability to identify and understand employee problems and emotions.
Ability to motivate to realize projects together within a team and achieve corporate goals.
Developing visions and promoting the creativity of employees to implement these visions.
How do you show leadership qualities?
The question of how to show leadership skills is closely related to the question of how to develop leadership skills. First, develop a positive mindset as a fundamental approach to problem-solving and demonstrate leadership skills:
through conflict resolution
as a thought leader with industry knowledge
by classifying tasks and projects in the corporate goals
Which leadership quality particularly promotes the commitment of employees?
Open communication between managers and their employees promotes the commitment of team members. On the one hand, it depends on the clear communication of the objectives. On the other hand, the communication style must be open and allow employees to contribute their ideas.
Which soft skills belong to the leadership qualities?
In addition to the necessary specialist knowledge, several soft skills are part of the leadership qualities that team leaders must distinguish. Soft skills include empathy, creativity, and the ability to work in a team. Soft skills must be part of the character traits of a manager, but they can also be trained.
