Leadership demands certain soft skills. Some of these skills not only help leaders guide and direct their teams but also help professionals seeking to grow into leadership positions.
For a career boost, focus on developing these four skills:
1. Communication
Teams look to their leaders for clear, concise explanations of everything from how to do a particular task to the mission and goals of the organization as a whole.
To become a leader others recognize, work on your communication skills in every medium, both verbal and written. Also, practice and develop keen active listening skills. The more you listen, the more information you have to make important decisions.
2. Motivation
The ability to motivate others allows leaders to keep their teams going through tough challenges or unexpected difficulties.
Because each person responds to their own set of motivators, effective motivation involves learning about each member of the team and identifying what motivates them. One doesn’t have to be in a leadership position to do this, however; active listening and empathy skills can help.
3. Delegation
Delegating is a tough skill for leaders to learn, but it is essential to good leadership. Leaders who can delegate not only teach their staff new skills, they also free up essential time to focus on tasks they cannot pass to their team.
While team members don’t always have the power to delegate to one another, skills like identifying measurable outcomes and perceiving individual strengths and weaknesses in team members also underpin good delegation.
4. Positivity
For a team, there is a world of difference between a leader who has faith in them and their ability to find solutions and one who doesn’t. Positivity doesn’t require rose-colored glasses; rather, it demands the position that the team will find the answer and their questions and needs are worth addressing.
Anyone on the team can generate and express this kind of positivity, whether or not they’re already in a leadership role. Demonstrating such positivity often places a person first in line for a promotion as well.
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