Leadership is the ability to motivate a group of people to achieve a common goal. In a business setting, this means directing workers and colleagues to meet the company’s needs. To influence every colleague and eventually be a successful leader, there are nine winning skills that you can take into consideration.
1. Relationship Building
Relationship building is the foundation of any high-performing, results-oriented team, and is an essential winning leadership skill. This will enable leaders to build a cohesive, more engaged team. Some strategies that can be used to achieve this is by expressing gratitude to the staff and arranging various team-building exercises.
According to Gallup’s meta-analysis of employee engagement, businesses with good employee engagement have 41% fewer quality defects and 37% less absenteeism. Additionally, there is a 21% increase in productivity resulting from higher employee engagement. Highly engaged teams foster a happy working environment for everyone. Office sporting activities is one effective way of connecting with staff.
2. Critical Thinking
It was the Brandon Hall Group that shared a table depicting critical thinking as the top most important skill required of leaders to lead an organization successfully. Critical thinkers often make knowledgeable and objective decisions. They are highly analytical and always rational.
Whenever difficult decisions arise, this leader is trusted to make the best decisions mutually beneficial to both organizations and employees. Team members will rest assured, knowing that every decision made is well researched and that all possible outcomes were thoroughly assessed. They will be convinced that the final choice is the best.
3. Communication
Communication is another essential winning leadership skill. Good communication assists in the reduction of conflicts while building solid relationships within the organization. While communication is of extreme importance, it is also very challenging, especially in a technology or manufacturing industry where people were initially hired for their production skills, not communication.
Many problems in the workplace arise from a lack of communication or miscommunication. Therefore, leaders must be endowed with the ability to give feedback and appreciate, recognize, correct, and reprimand employees; thus, businesses must invest in the requisite communication skills training for managers and employees.
4. Time Management
In a fast-paced, highly competitive business environment, employers continue to look for strong time-management skills. Time is money. Workloads pile up in no time and get daunting to think about the time you will need to finish the assigned work.
Researches inform that an average manager gets interrupted every 3 minutes, which Stephen Covey suggests can use his time-management quadrant to organize and prioritize tasks for effective output. A leader without adequate control over his schedules can experience burn-out in no time.
5. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is a critical winning leadership skill. This is the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions to guide thinking and behavior. Such talent is needed if one wishes to lead his team effectively.
Leaders must have the ability to empathize and listen to subordinates and colleagues and decipher a person’s emotions and then figure out how best to deal with it. This skill may not come instinctively, so the requisite leadership skills training may be required to develop or enhance emotional Intelligence.
6. Empathy
Empathy is a crucial skill in influencing colleagues. With empathy comes respect and trust. Being empathetic, listening keenly to others, attending to their needs, and building relationships. Being empathetic ultimately results in better performance of the entire team. When a manager is empathetic, the people he leads will more likely go the extra mile.
Managers need to express empathy, especially when assigning a task to persons who won’t like it or offer criticisms, or mediating in employee disputes. Still, empathy is needed when giving bad news to persons, e.g., Telling staff that they will have to be laid off or suspended.
7. Consistency
To influence every colleague, the leaders within the organization must be consistent. This winning skill will assist managers in treating every team member equally. Being consistent enables managers to be fair in rewarding behaviors, motivating staff, and providing feedback to actions they wish to discourage.
Effective leadership is being consistent and avoiding favoritism. This gives managers some leverage in the form of moral authority. Additionally, when leaders are consistent, staff members will be consistent too. Importantly, consistency builds integrity. Being consistent is also one way to empower staff to act based on your desired behaviors and culture.
8. Organization
Effective leadership involves setting goals, planning, executing, reviewing outcomes, and identifying areas that need improvement. Managers typically have a heavy workload, so if they do not have strong organizational skills, they will fail instead of an organized manager who often projects an image of reliability and control.
Additionally, good organizational skills establish a sense of professionalism in the workplace. They will enable managers to win the trust of employees and that of clients and associates easily. Good organizational skills can aid in the reduction of stress and creates a more relaxed working environment.
9. Delegation
Many persons consider delegation as offloading work so that they can have less stress as a leader. That is not the case. When a manager effectively delegates, they are intrinsically building staff members’ leadership skills and demonstrating that you trust your team members to deliver beyond basic expectations.
Managers who delegate tend to be more effective as the superior-subordinate relationship is often improved during the process. This is because staff members tend to become more motivated to work and are more satisfied with their jobs. Delegation assists in bringing stability and such relationships and aid greatly in breaking the monotony of the subordinates so they can be more creative and efficient in executing the given tasks.
Conclusion
To be influential leaders, one must hone the requisite winning leadership skills to influence every staff member. Such skills build relationships while thinking critically, communicating and managing their time well, and being emotionally intelligent and consistent. They must have good organization skills and the ability to delegate, and through it all, they must be empathetic.
