Whether you are a CEO, a student studying at a university, or even just an older sibling, leadership skills have shaped your personal growth and those around you. Leadership is how someone inspires others to achieve outcomes. It requires a mix of high confidence, open-mindedness, and humility. With the current remote environment, leadership now, more than ever, is of growing in importance.
Who Can Be an Extraordinary Leader?
For some, the trait comes more naturally, and for others, it is a skill that is learned. No guide or book will teach someone everything they need to know to become a great leader, but many of the skills that make up a great leader are soft skills. You may be asking yourself, why developing these leadership skills is so critical in the workplace? People like Kurt Uhlir, who can steer others towards achievement, inspire change, and deliver results are those who have excellent leadership skills. They help ensure a great company community as well as excellent results. What are the most in-demand leadership skills? There may be many skills in many sectors that make up a great leader. Here are some of the top leadership skills that make up an extraordinary leader.
Multi-thread Relationship Building
Multi-thread relationship building is the building of relationships with many client stakeholders and coaching their teams. If you hold an entire deal on just one connection, you might lose your deal. The more contacts you have in a company, the better. Multi-threading opens up potential new opportunities and safeguards deals.
Simplistic Communication
Describing a solution in an easy-to-imagine way can help clients understand what they might be buying from you and your team. It’s better understood when your message is communicated simply since sometimes product offerings can be unclear. This can help employees have more clarity and efficiently finish a task.
Virtual Stage Presence
Since the current marketplace is primarily a digital experience, most engagements with clients occur virtually. A leader must now make the best impression online in order to close a deal. Leaders do this by regularly practicing their virtual stage presence but adjusting body language, environments, and personal styles. Focusing on these small things has helped leaders obtain deals they may not have been able to reach if a client just came into an office. The virtual environment exposes them to many more clients worldwide.
Active listening
Leaders should listen to other’s responses and ask good questions to their team. O-P-C questions are open-ended to get people talking by expanding the conversation. The O stands for an open-ended question, P stands for Probing, and C stands for confirming. This tool helps you gain information as well as perspective. The importance of active listening is that it allows a leader to recognize others’ views and allows them a leader who appreciates others. Sometimes this will be used to foster respect in a community or even resolve conflicts.
Social-Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Social-Emotional Intelligence is the ability of someone to take charge of their emotions which can help understand, handle and influence the feelings of others. Even in challenging situations, a leader will use the awareness of their own emotions to manage their relationships effectively. The five elements of Social-Emotional Intelligence are international motivation, self-regulation, self-awareness, empathy, and social understanding. As for social intelligence knows when to talk versus listen and what to say versus an action.
Leveraging New Technologies
This is significant to business development leaders as this provides more excellent value internally and to clients. In the shifting marketplace learning, this skill can help with day-to-day tasks and track returns on investments. Due to the pandemic, many companies became flexible with online learning, such as completing tasks over zoom. Therefore, staying sharp on emerging technologies and applications can help leaders stay ahead.
The Ability to Take Initiative
A successful leader knows how to stay two or three steps ahead by initiating changes and getting their team to embrace those changes. They are not reactive changes but proactive ones. Proactive means using your previous knowledge of the job and determining decisions on your own or if you should present these ideas to your supervisors before proceeding with implementation of the changes. Voicing your thoughts to the team or supervisors is also essential for taking initiative. Lastly, setting realistically achievable standards for yourself is the most critical aspect of being able to be a good leader. Your possible standards are the tasks that you have energy and resources for. Part of this is knowing when to ask for help, as a leader should not be afraid to ask for help.
How Can You Develop Your Leadership Skills?
After reading about the leadership skills listed above, you may be wondering how you can gain them if you don’t already have them. Well, advancements commonly happen to depend on a willingness to learn. The first thing that you can do to help develop skills that you may not have or sharpen the ones you do, is to practice discipline. Every good leader needs to understand the importance of developing discipline in her life. The amount of discipline you display helps others judge your capacity to lead. How can you practice your profession? Small things like implementing good habits at home, such as daily exercise, are forms of discipline. Another form can be ending meetings on time. The constant practice will make you an expert at discipline and help you become more respected at work.
The following way to develop the skills discussed is to learn how to follow them. A great leader has no problem handing off leadership to another person when needed and should not be threatened by disagreements. Giving merit when merit is due to someone else is significant to developing leadership skills. After all, we learn the best by learning from others. It may not be the easiest, but if you know how to respect and value others on your team, they will demonstrate the same to you.
A small, easy way to develop your skills is not for you but others. Inspiring and motivating your team and others is an easy way to practice being a leader and your soft skills. It’s simple to offer guidance and encouragement. You have to have an open ear for your co-workers and team. Another great place to start is to take a leadership style test to see what type of leader you are. If you don’t know where to start developing your skills, take it little by little and start on a small project that offers improvement at home or work. Good Leadership skills are essential to advancing yourself in your career, but it’s more than just running a team. It’s to help inspire others. Visit BluShark Digital’s website to learn about how the CEO and founder, Seth Price, has utilized his leadership skills to become one of the industry’s top thought leaders.
