What is Leadership and how to develop the necessary skills for leadership?
On some occasions, leadership is described as the person’s actions to lead a group of people or an organisation which is totally different from management. Managers in general do not challenge the status quo.
Some people have natural leadership skills, but if you don’t have the skills in you, the good news is that you can develop leadership skills.
Throughout the years, the leadership skills of many successful leaders in all industries have been examined and the conclusion is that these people are doing some things daily that separate them from the rest. Those daily habits can be implemented by anyone that is willing to become a great leader in any industry.
They tend to analyse situations differently from managers and they have the skill set necessary to achieve better results when taking important decisions.
The leaders are usually very effective in managing the resistance to change and the act of fairness in their actions can be clearly identified.
They are the motivators, and they always recognise the achievements of other people. They always give feedback because they understand the importance of it for improving ways of working in the future.
It’s also irrelevant to someone’s hierarchy in the company and it has nothing to do with someone’s pay scale, but it is the ability to empower others.
All effective leaders have specific qualities that characterises them. These qualities include:
They focus on developing others.
They encourage strategic thinking.
They are ethical.
They are honest.
They are open-minded and creative.
They’re patient.
They’re flexible.
They possess good communication skills.
They possess a never-give-up spirit.
They have self-awareness and prioritise personal development.
Styles:
Further to the qualities of the leaders, there are leadership styles that each one is using to lead others:
Democratic Leadership
Autocratic Leadership
Laissez faire Leadership
Strategic Leadership
Transformational Leadership
Coach Style Leadership
Bureaucratic Leadership
They know how to motivate individuals to achieve organisational goals in general they have they use social skills to encourage other people to achieve their best. It takes a huge amount of effort to be disciplined to the level that it’s required and to keep up the good habits in your life to become a leader.
Understanding that communication is an important factor in becoming a leader since you will have to effectively communicate with people, if your communication skills are not excellent, then it makes it difficult to deliver your message to your company or organisation, and if you fail to do that in the company you are working for, then it makes harder to deliver a message to the rest of the world if that’s what your goal is.
Open-minded people tend to be curious to hear what other people think and they are always more interested in listening than in speaking; by collecting the necessary data, they are much better at problem-solving.
In the modern days and with new ways of working, leadership will be challenging, especially in how to motivate remote employees. Your skills will be put to test as it’s something that was mainly introduced during Covid, but by the look of things, the new way of working is here to stay with more and more countries encouraging employees to work from home and it can still be a highly productive way of working.
The ability to develop into a great leader can also be accelerated if you are surrounded by other great leaders and by watching them or even better if they are mentoring you, then you will improve your skills in a very short time because they have the whole package that you want to develop.
Don’t be afraid to ask someone to be your mentor, most of the time, people will feel proud when someone asks them to teach them their skills because this is a way of recognising their skills. Make sure that you break down each leadership quality to find out what changes you need to make in your life to support this change that you are looking for.
All that being said, make sure to “Lead by example and inspire others to succeed”.
