5 Skills Every Leader Should Have

There’s no manual or how-to guide on how to become a good leader, however, great leaders often have certain traits in common and by working on these essential skills, you can improve your leadership abilities for better results. 

A leadership assessment can help you determine what skillset is required for leaders in your company. In this article, we highlight the 5 must-have skills for great leadership.

1. Excellent Communication Skills

Communication skills are vital for effective leadership. Communication doesn’t just involve successfully conveying ideas and information to your team in a clear, efficient manner but also includes excellent listening skills such as practising active listening and being receptive to input and ideas from others.

Part of having great communication skills means knowing when information is best passed on via a quick email or phone call or when an in-person or virtual meeting would achieve better results.

2. Creativity

Creativity is an essential skill for leaders regardless of their field. Creative skills are useful for managing both projects and your team. There will be times as a leader when there is no clear answer to a decision that you need to make, so being able to think outside the box can help you find your way forward.

Creative leaders show curiosity and embrace alternate perspectives, they’re also innovative and imaginative when it comes to generating fresh ideas, or solving problems.

3. The Ability to Delegate

The ability to delegate tasks is crucial for effective leadership. Delegation is the ability and willingness to assign tasks to others as appropriate and to provide team members with clear instructions so they’re able to carry out the tasks to the best of their ability.

If you try to take on everything yourself, you may not be able to deliver results on time and you can be at risk of burnout. Delegation skills are a sign of strong leadership and show your team that you trust them. In order to delegate effectively, you need to be able to identify the capabilities of your team and assign them tasks that match their skills.

4. Decision Making & Conflict Management

As a leader, you will need to make balanced, well-thought-out decisions, sometimes under pressure or within time constraints. Great decision-making skills will enable you to quickly weigh up your options and predict the potential ramifications of a decision.

This also relates to conflict management, another essential leadership skill as it requires you to mediate between your team members when difficulties or disagreements rise and find a way forward to a compromise that benefits the team as a whole and is aligned to your company’s goals.

5. Motivational Skills

A good leader needs the ability to motivate others. This will help your team meet their goals and also help individual employees to develop and reach their potential. Motivation is about finding what drives the people in your team and setting clear objectives.

To motivate others, you also need good team-building skills, so you can promote a supportive and collaborative atmosphere. Organising team bonding activities will allow teams to forge and strengthen their working relationships, which can help them work more effectively.

In Summary

Not every leader will lead their team in the same way, and there are many different leadership styles. However, it’s important that whatever kind of leader you are, your team trusts you and has faith in your leadership skills.