Developing Leadership Skills

The ability to understand what makes individuals who they are at work or at home is known as self-awareness. It's a leadership skill that allows people to understand not only their emotions, but also the impact they can have on work performance and relationships with coworkers.

Self awareness is the ability to understand one's emotions, moods, and motivations.

While the leadership skill of self-awareness takes a look inside, the skill of self regulation is the ability to control emotions that are counterproductive to achieving goals.

How often have we observed a manager and think they are their own worst enemy? Did they allow their emotions and impulsive behavior to lead them down the wrong path? Self regulation is the skill used to control the moods, impulses, and emotions that can hurt relationships with coworkers.

Motivation can be an entire topic unto itself. In fact, this website has an article dedicated to this subject: Motivation and Leadership. Motivation can be defined as the drive or passion that goes beyond money or status and it typically takes two forms:

• Extrinsic Motivation: comes from external sources, such as a manager's recognition for a job well done.

• Intrinsic Motivation: comes from within, often referred to as self or internal motivation.

As a leader, it's important to develop the skills needed to identify what motivates followers. Finding out what motivates others is often accomplished by trial and error. There are a number of approaches to improve this skill outlined in the motivation article referenced earlier.

Empathy is perhaps the most important leadership skill that touches relationships with others. Empathy is the leader's ability to understand the other person's point of view. Many leaders-in-training mistakenly believe that sympathy is the same skill as empathy - it's not.

Empathy is the ability to truly put oneself in the other person's shoes and understand how they are feeling. It's the ability to understand the impact change can have on someone else, and taking their feelings into consideration before making a change.

Finally, it's time to discuss social skills. Effective leaders need to be able to socialize with others. In this way, social skills are very much like effective networking skills in a work setting.

Followers need to understand the leader is a human being, just like them. It's important to take an interest and listen when employees talk about their families or loved ones because they play an important role in their lives. It's important to be able to develop and guide others, and using the rapport developed through social skills.

Perhaps the single most important leadership skill someone can practice nearly every day is treating others the way they wish to be treated. Unfortunately, among the chaos found at work, this is not always as easy as it sounds.

Pressures to improve the "bottom line" and "just get it done" are two examples of attitudes that might prevent someone from following this golden rule. As leaders in an organization, it's important to strike a balance of short term results and long term job satisfaction. Practice this balance every day by asking this question: Is this the way I would want to be treated?

While these two styles have a place in certain situations, the autocratic and the coercive leadership style are arguably the two most destructive approaches a leader can practice.

Autocratic leaders, by definition, make all the decisions themselves and take responsibility for the results achieved. Autocrats can be extremely hard to work for over the long haul, and are characterized by the statement "just do as I say."

Coercive leaders were found to have the most negative affect on the workplace climate. This type of leader demands immediate compliance, and uses threats to pressure coworkers into compliance. The only time it's really acceptable to use these styles is to turn around an organization.

A leadership skill that's important to develop is coaching and teaching others. This is especially effective in a situation where the leader might be viewed as an expert. All managers should be extremely interested in the growth and development of their direct reports.

The benefit of coaching and teaching others is threefold. For example, it creates an opportunity to develop a replacement from a succession planning standpoint. It's also easier to be away from the office when there is a person that can act as a good backup. Finally, many employees like the challenge of new assignments, and the act of teaching and learning can motivate many individuals.

It's possible to develop coaching skills by working directly with others.

Here we're talking about true delegation of tasks; not dumping work on a coworker and walking away. The proper delegating of tasks by leaders will not only result in an additional learning experience for the follower, but also serves as a signal of trust.

It's possible to develop delegating skills by starting small, assigning tasks that can be successfully completed on time and with acceptable quality. As everyone becomes more comfortable and confident, it's possible to begin delegating more important and difficult tasks.

This final leadership skill could be referred to as "democracy at work." This is simply encouraging independent thinking, and allowing coworkers to believe they have a say in the direction of the team.

There are a couple of things to watch out for when practicing this particular leadership skill. The first has to do with timing. The democratic leadership style can often result in delays in getting work done. By allowing others to "vote" on how and what to do, there will be debate and dialog that often comes with this freedom to speak up and be heard.

As was the situation with delegating tasks, an example of how to practice this skill is in order. This can start with a relatively trivial question or assignment; gathering the team together and asking them their opinion on how to proceed.