Gandhi said “The future depends on what we do in the present”. Leaders who embrace learning new and better ways to lead today are developing a stronger set of tools to lead tomorrow. All good leaders require a number of skills to help them successfully interact with their team, especially as the workplace continues to evolve culturally and technologically.
Important Leadership Skills
Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They differ by educational backgrounds, ethnicities, and stages in their career. Regardless of any personal characteristic, they should possess as many of the following qualities as possible to lead into the future.
1. Communication
By far the number one skill, communication is the foundation or bedrock for anyone leading a group of employees. Leaders must have the skill to clearly and succinctly explain everyday operations and big picture goals. It’s important to be flexible and be able to communicate in many ways including one-on-one, in front of a small or large group and on a phone, email, video or social media.
Some important communication skills to learn today and master tomorrow include active listening, articulating, explaining, expressing and reducing ambiguity.
2. Creativity
Developing skills is one thing, using them in new and creative ways is quite another. Good leaders need to be quick on their feet and even quicker in their thoughts. This requires a level of creativity. The workplace is changing. Different generations of employees are coming and going. Creativity in this sense means being a little experimental in one’s approach, allowing for some innovation in how things get done, and encouraging others to drop old ways of doing things and replace them by far better means.
3. Emotional Intelligence
One skill that everyone, including leaders, can work on is E.I. or emotional intelligence, especially in diverse workplaces. This involves understanding and managing one’s emotions during interaction with employees and reading the room – understanding the emotions of others and appropriately responding to them. This is easier said than done and that’s why leaders need to work on it all the time.
4. Cultural Intelligence
Equally important to emotional intelligence is being culturally plugged into the workplace and uniquely different employees. This involves taking the time to learn about employees, respecting and appreciating differences and becoming more culturally competent. Culture means everything from gender to race, ethnicity, religious background, age, disability, political standing, military status, and more. Learning a little about a lot can be beneficial for leaders now and tomorrow.
5. Cognitive Flexibility
No leader has the luxury of being a “one-trick pony”. Instead, leaders must be able to quickly and effectively shift mental focus from one task to another, from one problem to the next and make critical decisions within moments. In other words, they require cognitive flexibility. This is a skill that requires focus and a train of thought in one area that can be mentally “shelved” for a while in order to tackle the next round of actions required.
6. Persistence
It’s good to know that persistence is wired into human DNA. There’s no way the human race would have made it this far from running from dinosaurs, to building pyramids, leading revolutions, and landing on the moon. Persistence is already sitting there, waiting for the leader to more fully tap into its potential. Leaders would be doing themselves a favor by not only exploring their skills in persistence but remembering that the past doesn’t define anyone today, and there is always a new course of action to take.
7. Motivation
Leading is motivating and inspiring others to see the overall vision and mission as a whole and understand their distinct part in them. It involves building employees’ self-esteem and confidence and rewarding good people for things well done. Giving employees more roles and responsibilities and increasing their investment in the workplace are great ways to motivate.
Other Important leadership skills to work on now and the future include:
- Delegation
- Positivity
- Empathy
- Collaboration
- Trustworthiness
- Feedback
- Commitment
Final Thoughts on Leadership Skills for The Future
Some leaders have natural talents that can be improved through focused practice. Others need to take an inventory of their strengths and weaknesses and decide to work on those skills that will benefit them the most. Regardless, the workplace will continually change and evolve, so leaders need to learn new skills today for their success tomorrow.