Developing emerging leaders is a trend that is growing across organisations. This goes a long way towards strengthening the leadership pipeline in an organisation, building the confidence of new leaders to navigate through a wide variety of situations, engage with stakeholders and lead their team to deliver key outcomes. I often get asked this question by people who are new to leadership or are aspiring to take on leadership roles, “what skills do I need to succeed as a leader?” I think this is a question that crosses the mind of every leader- new or established. In today’s newsletter, I thought of sharing some essential skills that help emerging leaders step up and lead with impact. These, by the way, are just as relevant for established leaders. I trust that you find this valuable. The skills have been grouped across few core areas of leadership:
- Communication
- Learning and awareness
- Thought leadership and resilience
- Accountability
Area 1: Communication
Communication is a key attribute for leadership. I am sure you would appreciate this, your ability to communicate with others helps you engage, inspire and empower them. Just what makes leaders effective. The communication skills that serve you well as you grow as a leader are as follows:
Simplify ideas: “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers. They cut through debate and doubt, and offer a solution that everyone can understand- Colin Powell”. A great quote that sums up a basic rule of communication: Keep it simple. Stakeholders appreciate messages that are easy to follow and comprehend, as it gives them more clarity. So rather than delivering complex messages and getting caught up in jargons, it helps if you deliver content that your audience can understand. Aim to engage and inform, than to impress.
Active listening: This is a key skill that many leaders struggle with. It’s important to actively listen to people. Turn that phone/email away, suspend your judgement for a moment. This helps you be present to the conversation, and and give it all your attention. This also help you be aware of what’s not being said- you can be mindful of people’s body language and their energy, and you can respond accordingly. Active listening makes you more approachable, and people feel valued when you give them your time and attention.
Area 2: Learning and awareness
As a leader, you need to be constantly learning. Your ability to learn builds your awareness of people and situations around you. You respond better to situations, and you grow in the process.
Skills and experience: As a leader, you get to pick up various skills that are necessary for you to succeed. It’s important for you have a mindset of learning those and being open to experiences that support your learning. A great question to reflect on after every experience would be “What additional skills have I learnt here?”
People: As a leader, it’s crucial that you learn more about the people you work with- your team members, clients and stakeholders. It helps you form stronger relationships with them, it helps you understand them- what they value, what concerns them, what their strengths are, and so on. This gives you the clarity to interact with them accordingly so you can collaborate better.
Your environment: It’s also important to learn about your environment and the processes and systems that are in place. This helps you make key decisions, and identify opportunities to improve those processes and systems. Leaders often get caught off guard because they do not fully appreciate their environment. This results in incorrect assumptions and flawed decisions.
Be coachable: In your journey as a leader, it’s essential that you are coachable. Your leaders are there to help and guide you along the way, but you need to be open to their feedback and guidance. This can often mean being open to be challenged, to be a part of tough conversations, and incorporate different perspectives and approaches.
Area 3: Thought leadership and resilience:
People often look to their leaders in uncertain and tough times. How effectively you take your team through those situations shapes the impact you have. Whether people feel confident and inspired, or they feel more anxious and stressed. It doesn’t just have to be leaders at the very top. As an emerging leader, you too can play a key role in inspiring people and boosting their morale when things go pear shaped.
Problem solving: Here’s an interesting piece of information: Only 3% of people across the world can solve problems effectively. That’s right. Only 3%. Across the world. Gives you some perspective, doesn’t it? Problem solving has always been regarded as a vital skill for success- personally as well as professionally. And we often come to expect it from leaders. So as a leader, your problem solving skills can often settle a lot of nerves.
Decision making: Leadership is decisionship. Often, you may be required to make decisions for the team that influence your environment, the work you do and the results you create. It becomes more important to be comfortable making decisions, gathering information and insights that help you make more informed. And avoiding some of these blind spots that impair your decision making.
Area 4: Accountability
When you take on a leadership, it automatically means taking on greater accountability. You are often held responsible for the results your team creates, and if things go wrong, it’s you who needs to address the stakeholders.
Taking responsibility: I heard this once- Every leader needs to think like an entrepreneur. Makes sense in so many ways! Think of the area that you are working on as a business you run. You are in charge of things. You need to own things. Be across what’s happening. And if things aren’t working out, focus on what you and your team can do to turn things around. Without blame game, without making excuses. Through collaboration, and the belief that you can pull through.
Empowering others: Before you take on leadership, success is about growing yourself. When you take on leadership though, success is about growing others. Even when you are emerging leader, you have the opportunity to empower others. Through your knowledge, optimism, and the ability to make things happen. Your career progression is often linked to how you can mentor and develop others to take on your role while you take on a higher role. This can be through constant conversation, creating knowledge artefacts, processes that people can follow in your absence.
As an emerging leader, which of these areas and skills do you resonate with? What other skills do you think you need to step up as a leader? I’m keen to hear your thoughts. And if you are curious on how you can learn these skills, I’m more than happy to have a chat to see how I can help!