Primary Skills Every Leader Should Have

The first time you apply for a leadership position, you would probably find the range of skills required really overwhelming. However, many leaders coincide that all skills do not have equal importance, some are less important while some are more important.

If you aim to be not just any kind of leader but an effective one, then you need to work on these skills.

You would find in this article, the list of top most important skills that leaders must possess and why we think so. You would also get pointers to other pages that will show you how quickly and effectively you can develop those skills.

Personal skills come first on the list, they are four in number. These cover your behavioral composition on a personal level and the actions you exhibit towards yourself.

They also concern your belief system as a whole.

1.Positive Attitude and Self-Confidence 

Leadership begins with you. If you don't believe in yourself, there's no way you can get other people to believe in you.

This isn't thinking of yourself as invincible when reality proves otherwise; rather, it is accepting who you are and knowing how to go about completing the task--not only you but also with the help of others.

Also, it is important that leaders exhibit a can-do and positive attitude. No matter how ineffective you find this statement: 'what you can achieve depends on what you believe you can achieve', it doesn't take away the fact that it is true and validated by scientific documentation. Attaining your successful aspirations relies on the powerful technique of positive thinking.

2. Personal Drive and Motivation

Good leaders are well motivated on a personal level: they are driven and are able to propel actions and changes in a progressive manner. 

One major aspect of emotional intelligence is self-motivation, being able to understand and to achieve by using both your emotions and that of others. Self-motivation is made up of four elements, they include:

Drive, the longing to improve or achieve;

• Dedication to goals;
• Initiative, or readiness to tackle opportunities; and
• Optimism, not quitting when challenges come up.

3. Honesty and Integrity

Having integrity in all your actions comes third under personal leadership skills. This also relates to emotional intelligence and covers trustworthiness, reliability and conscientiousness.

Those whose actions are backed by integrity act according to their strong moral values.

Their 'moral compass' is strong and this guides their socially acceptable, fair and just actions. Their conscience makes them fulfill their promises and you can rely on them to keep their word. They are the types that abide to the commitment that they make.

The ‘Does this make my butt look big?' question

Honesty does not go hand-in-hand with cruelty.

Even when a performance is truly bad, there are ways to honestly criticize it that will both be constructive and helpful, without falling on deaf ears.

Responding to 'Does this make my butt look big?' In a direct manner that's equivalent to saying 'yes' is not inclusive. All this would do is end up hurting someone.

4. Flexibility

Change is inevitable in organizational life. Good leaders should accept it that way and know how to personally manage change.

You can do that by willingly accepting uncertainty. One possible way of approaching this is saying the serenity prayer---asking for the serenity to accept those things that we cannot change, the courage to change the ones that we can and the wisdom to differentiate both. 

Good leaders should be skilled in preparing their team and organization for change. They have to know how to create and communicate to them their plain personal views and drive them towards making the relevant changes at organizational level.

The three areas of skills that come next involves working with others.

5. Communication Skills

Every other leadership skills rest on communication skills. Leaders have to know how to convey their ideas to others.

Therefore, they need to be skilled at making effective speeches, paying attention to non-verbal communication and body language and also interpreting them because most times, what is omitted is equally as important as what is said.

6. Motivation Skills

When leaders possess strong motivation skills, they will be able to sustain the progress of their team in both good and bad times.

They understand and are able to profitably use the knowledge of what inspires each person to come to work and remain on their desk everyday. They go out of their way to make interesting and challenging work available each day, that would be demanding for each person but also achievable.

This task is quite difficulty and probably the most challenging for any leader. That's why it is very important to have the ability of remaining self-motivated.

7. Delegation Skills

You cannot do the work alone; therefore, a leader should be effective in delegating work to others.

Effectively delegating work is not an easy thing to do. You have to be sure that both you and your delegate are satisfied about the measure of control you both have over the work. It is usually difficult for a lot of new leaders and managers to trust others and let go.

Regarding delegation, it helps to know your team, know what you want and understand the amount of control you want. The most important thing is probably having an effective communication with your team so that the delegation process will be fully clear to them.

The final three skills encompass technical skills and the ability to work in specific areas.

8. Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Skills

Problem-solving and decision-making skills are important to everyone and not only to leaders. Everyday, we face various problems that require us to make decisions and right from our childhood, we have been developing the skills to tackle them.

However, it cannot be denied that some people are better than others at these skills.

The key to approaching these skills, especially for those that find it difficult, is by using a structured framework. This will stand as a guide to help you through this process and it's a common knowledge that problems are more manageable when they are compartmentalized.

9. Strategic Thinking Skills

New leaders tend to dread the area of strategic thinking the most because it is not easy to be experienced in this area prior occupying a leadership position. However, it is basically working out your current position, the position you want to be and how you can move from one to the other.

When you combine this with action planning and a good habit of comparing your decisions with your strategic goals---and going over your strategic goals frequently, achieving success in this area will be only a matter of time.

10. Creative Thinking and Innovation Skills

Creative thinking and innovation skills may be the most less apparent leadership skills. However, one of the most key aspects of leadership is the ability to break away from the norm and look for ways to do something that has never been thought of.

It is about having a different thinking pattern that can produce new ideas. Creative thinking technique involves coming up with several ideas on a regular basis. A lot of those ideas will be useless but there will be one or two that will turn out being brilliant.

Innovation is the ability to produce new ideas and to practice those ideas everyday. It's not uncommon to find people who are all talk and no action. That isn't innovation, to be innovative, one has to be practical, experimental, able to adapt and readily accept failure.

Developing Skills, Developing Growth

There are many leaders who will tell you that they are not perfect where all these skills are concerned but that doesn't mean they are not working on them.

Leadership involves the ability to accept that there's always room for improvement. The best thing that any leader-to-be should do is perhaps, to develop the mindset of learning and growing.

Gregg Swanson is a sales performance consultant and business coach and has authored several books and numerous articles on peak performance and creator of “Sales Strong.” Gregg specializes helping sales professionals develop mental strength for optimum sales performance. You can pick-up your complementary report, “The Most Critical Step in Sales” by going HERE.