It is not a secret that to be a successful leader, you must have the core skills and qualities of leadership. However, not all leaders have the skills and qualities of leadership that are needed to lead the people. Only a few have the core and natural leadership traits every leader need. That means the rest must learn and develop their skills for leadership if they aspire to become great leaders. Find below is:
The Top 6 Skills and Qualities of Leadership that Make Great Leaders of Today:
1. Integrity
Integrity is a critical skill and one of the most compelling qualities great leaders have. It is the cornerstone of leadership. Leaders must create a positive impact on people and the organization they lead.
Leaders with integrity put into practice what they promise to do. That means their daily actions must match their words.
Each time there is a mismatch between what the leader says and do, people start to doubt you. People may not know what is in your mind, but they can judge your integrity based on your actions and words.
Many leaders think of themselves as honest, yet their behaviour shows otherwise. They behave in a deceptive way that presents a false sense of reality. So, they are faking out.
However, integrity cannot be faked because people can see it in your daily actions. Integrity promotes trust. But trust is a fragile thing which is so hard to create and very easy to destroy. When leaders break employees’ trust they lose their credibility and good reputation.
2. Influence
Leadership is a skill and an action that influences. Moreover, influence is the capacity of impelling others to change their thoughts and behaviour. It is a persuasion backed by credibility. Whoever affects others to do something has the leadership.
Commanding employees to do the job doesn’t always work. Even where it seems to work, the method of pushing people to work hard is not sustainable. People have choices, and they make them each day.
They decide how much effort to put into their daily work. The key to great leadership is influence, not authority. Influential leaders can make people act on their own free will. They can make subtle prompts to get things done. The aim is to make the employees own the work and take credit for the results.
If you want to influence your people, first open yourself up for advice. Positive influencing is reciprocal. Most employees love giving their viewpoints to the leaders.
Leaders strengthen their influencing capacity whenever they consult their people on crucial decisions. Also, when leaders are sincere to people, it makes them feel valued. The ability to influence depends on the amount of trust you create in your relationships with the people you lead.
3. Decision-Making
Leadership requires making decisions, even if they turn out to be the wrong ones. As a leader, you must decide based on the facts available. Because being incapable of deciding can lead to a loss of support and credibility.
Just make sure you avoid being biased, impulsive, inconsistent, or try to rush into a decision. These are characteristics that can put you at odds with making a sensible decision.
It is crucial first to understand the problem you are trying to solve before deciding. Many leaders can make decisions based on their past experiences or their professional values.
However, comparing the current issues with problems you have addressed in the past can be risky. Because trying to apply old reasoning to new challenges can lead you solving the wrong questions.
So, it would be best if you thought objectively to make the right decisions. Just make sure you know what the objectives are when deciding.
Effective communication is crucial for successful leadership. Leaders need to engage and speak with their people all the time. Also, they must communicate with accuracy and sincerity to make the message purposeful and understandable.
Meaningful communication only happens if people understand the message the leader is trying to get across.
All too often, poor communication occurs when leaders speak with assumptions that people understand what they are telling them. It’s important to check first to ensure that your communication style is appropriate. Always ask your audience to clarify if they understand your message.
Great leaders are good communicators. They are not only confident speakers but active listeners too. Effective communication involves listening to others, including those with opposing views. Show that you are listening by nodding, and making appropriate responses.
5. Delegation
Delegation is an essential strand of leadership. Leaders are not supposed to do everything by themselves. They have to delegate some activities and decision-making authority to team members.
Leaders also must ensure that those responsibilities and tasks are delegated to individuals with the right abilities to do the job.
There are a few reasons why delegation sometimes fail. The most common one is giving the responsibility to individuals who are not capable of doing the job.
Another one is the lack of resources and leadership support to do the job. As a leader, you need to provide appropriate support and guidance when necessary.
6. Prioritise
Leaders usually get inundated with many deferent leaderships demands. So when facing many applications, it is easy for a leader to do nothing and procrastinates instead.
Being able to multitask is admirable, however, it is not the most effective and efficient way to work, particularly when you have heavy workloads, frequent deadlines, and many projects to handle.
The key is prioritising. Leaders who prioritise do a great job. It allows them to get grips with conflicting leadership demands and become more organised. But prioritising can be a challenging thing only a few leaders are naturally good at. Others need to learn and work on it.
To summerise, leaders go through several tests every day, but not all of them realise this. People check your integrity, decision-making, royalty, and how you engage with them.
Leaders who fail to recognise this don’t improve their leadership skills and qualities. Because tests are the only pathway to developing good leadership skills and qualities, there are many aspects to being a leader.
So you need the right skills and qualities of leadership if you want to become a successful leader.
What are the other skills and qualities of leadership that can make great leaders of today? Please leave your thoughts in the comment box below