Whether you are starting out in an entry-level position and looking to move up the career ladder or you are seeking a promotion, your leadership skills will be among your most valuable assets. Leadership skills are skills you use when organizing other people to reach a shared goal and whether you are in a management position or leading a project, leadership skills require you to motivate others to complete a series of tasks, often according to a schedule.
Leadership is not just one skill but rather a combination of several different skills working together and almost any positive soft skill might be considered a leadership skill. For example, active listening helps leaders bring projects to completion by hearing the ideas and concerns of the team. Empathy, for example, helps leaders understand how their team feels about their workload, environment and workplace relationships.
Here are few leadership skills
Communication
Effective leadership and effective communication are intertwined. The best leaders are skilled communicators who are able to communicate in a variety of ways, from transmitting information to inspiring others to coaching direct reports. And you must be able to listen to, and communicate with, a wide range of people across roles, geographies, social identities and more. The quality and effectiveness of communication among leaders across your organization directly affects the success of your business strategy too.
Creativity
As a leader, you have to make a number of decisions that do not have a clear answer, so you need to be able to think outside of the box. Creativity is about seeking the best solution even when it’s not the typical one, and it is also thinking on your feet when situations change.
Positivity
As a leader, you don’t have to be chipper all the time but you do have to pass a sense of optimism on to your employees.
Confidence
Leaders have to make big decisions and these decisions often come with big risks. As a leader, you need to have confidence to act decisively in high skates situations. Moreover, there are always people who disagree with the leaders decisions. While it’s important to listen to other viewpoints, a leader can’t back down in the face of criticism or conflict.
Are These Leadership Skills by Nature or Nurture?
This is understood to mean, was the person born that way (nature), or did they learn Leadership skills from someone else (nurture)? Leadership and skills of a Leader lean more towards nurture.
Leadership skills can be learned from observing the successes and failures of others, or through direct trial and error experiences. Whether or not a person accepts the responsibility of being a Leader is a function of their personality. The difference is slight and not obvious, but importantly, a person’s experience allows them to understand what it takes to be a Leader, but whether they express these leadership skills themselves is a personal choice.
While such qualities might appear to be “natural”, and indeed may or may not have some basis in genetics, what is important is that they all have to be honed, developed, enhanced, fine-tuned, applied and adapted. If someone is to be a successful leader, this is where learning plays a real part. Skills can only be learned, they can never come with the genes, and having natural leadership attributes make it easier to acquire and utilize those skills efficiently. Even if you do not have so-called “in-built” Leadership qualities, you must learn the skills to be a Leader and that one may help balance or make up for the other.
All of these leadership skills can be learnt and honed with a well-rounded education and the balance of an inherent ability, and the right training is the winning formula for any human accomplishment even in leadership.
In conclusion, today’s successful leaders are dynamic, transforming and evolutionary, but they were not necessarily born that way. Their training in distinctions allows them to speak passionately and be open to the contributions of others while holding to a project’s long path of the process towards organization’s goal. However, successful leaders should be able to familiarize with nature and nurture leadership role specifically.
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