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25 Leadership Skills You

Need To Learn Fast
(Especially 1 to 7)
Leadership & General Management | 16 minutes read |
Last update: May 2021

Anyone can be placed in a leadership role, but to be

good and thrive in that position requires solid
leadership skills. Good leadership skills are top of
the list of competencies that recruiters need to focus
on when hiring people or when managers promote
leaders from within the organization.

The highest ranking companies hunt for people with

well-honed leadership skills to fill their most sought
after executive positions.

But questions still remains:

What are the essential leadership skills people

must acquire?
How can these people management skills help
land an executive position?

After ticking off all items outlined in this article

(especially 1 to 7), you’ll have enough confidence to
finally hand in your resume and apply for that job
you’ve been working so hard for and become a great
leader.
1. Relationship Building (The
Foundation Of A High-
Performing Team)
Some
leaders will
say they that
they do not
need to be
loved in the
workplace.
This may be
true, but to
build a cohesive and more engaged team, great
leaders need to learn the skills for building good
working relationships in the workplace.

Good working relationships increase employee

engagement and according to Gallup’s meta-analysis
of employee engagement, business units with good
employee engagement have 41% fewer quality
defects and 37% less absenteeism. A 21% increase in
productivity was also seen to result from higher
employee engagement. So even if you think you don’t
need to be loved in the workplace, you will definitely
need to be skilled in building good relationships in
order to be effective. If your team is highly engaged
and happy in the workplace, you will likely be loved or
at least well respected as a good leader.

Practical Tips:

Tip 1. Share More Of Yourself During Meetings.

Utilize meetings as a forum to let your team get to

know you better. Allow them to learn from your
stories, your experiences and the lessons you have
learnt in your career.

Tip 2. Write Thank You Notes.

Let your employees know that you appreciate the
work that they do, especially if they go above and
beyond what’s expected of them. Send them ‘thank
you’ notes, and make sure that their colleagues,
peers, subordinates and even your leaders know the
exemplary performance you are acknowledging them
for.

Tip 3. Organize Team Building Activities.

You do not need an elaborately planned team building

activity, a simple after office sport activity or a family
day with your staff can be an effective way to connect
with them. They will also get to appreciate that you
are trying to support their work-life balance.

2. Agility & Adaptability (Stay

On The Cutting Edge)
In a study
conducted by
Development
Dimensions
International
in 2008, the
top of the
three most
important
leadership qualities, at 32%, is the ability to facilitate
change. In 2018, adaptability is definitely one of the
most important leadership skills as the business
environment has changed so much and is
continuously changing, faster than ever.

Effective leadership must be able to adapt to the

changes - even if that means working out of your
comfort zone - so leaders are not left behind by shifts
in the industry, and can give their business a
competitive edge. This leads us to explore Innovation
& Creativity as part of the skill-set of the best
leaders.

Application:
Be Accountable In Responding To Change.

You need to make sure that you have laid out a plan
on how you should respond to organizational
changes. Have a detailed outline of steps and an
achievable timeline in tackling a policy change that
you’re dealing with. Constantly check your progress
on how well you are adapting to the change and how
you are exemplifying this to your staff.

3. Innovation & Creativity

(Push Your Boundaries)
What did it
take for
Apple to
become a
leader in the
computer
and mobile
technology
industry?
They made innovations to products with users in
mind, making their gadgets more user-friendly, as
customers who wanted this feature were willing to
pay for their pricier products.

Steve Jobs led the innovation and creativity for Apple

Inc. by continuously forging ahead of the competition,
and this probably made him one of the most
influential leaders in the tech industry to date. In a
global study on creativity, findings showed that
unlocking creative potential is key to economic and
societal growth. The increasing demand for creativity
and innovation will continue to be a driving force for
executives, who must harness their leadership skills
in these areas to be effective and competitive.

Practical Tips:

Tip 1. Schedule Time To Think.

Find time in your schedule to sit down and think with

no interruptions. This will help you organize your
thoughts and set goals for yourself and your team.
Use this time to think of new ideas or suggestions
that can improve performance and productivity.

Tip 2. Change Your Perspective.

Look out a window with a view instead of keeping

yourself in a four cornered room. Do a ‘walking
meeting’ in the fresh air with a few team members as
you brainstorm; a relaxed environment may help your
team come up with new ideas.

Tip 3. Keep The Focus On Others.

Make it a point to listen to each of your team’s ideas.

One of the ideas thrown out may just be the one you
are searching for. Listening to individual ideas will
also allow you to identify those who do not share your
goals. This can be a good opportunity to steer them in
the right direction.

4. Employee Motivation
(Improve Company’
Efficiency)
In close connection with relationship building, the
ability to motivate your workforce is as important as
keeping employee engagement high. One of the most
effective leadership skills is knowing how to
continuously motivate employees, regardless of their
engagement level.

Greatify point to a study done by the firm Interact on

1000 employees in the US which cited that the
number 1 complaint (63%) from employees
concerning their managers is lack of appreciation,
and, conversely, when managers appreciate their
contribution, their engagement increases by 60%. In
another study by Westminster College, it was found
that boosting morale is the top (32%) motivational
technique employees prefer. If employees are not
motivated, the company is negatively affected
(financially) with absenteeism, attrition and low
productivity.
Practical Tip:

Announce Commendations.

Praise publicly but correct privately. Employees will

definitely appreciate being acknowledged for the good
work that they do, making your commendations
public can boost employee engagement. This type of
reward is sometimes preferred by some employees.

5. Decision-Making (Produce
The Best Results)
A leader is tasked with making decisions all the time.
To be an effective leader, those decision making skills
need to be top notch. Critical decisions affecting your
organization on a large scale need to be sound,
rational and solid.

In reality, your decisions as a leader will determine

your - and potentially your organization’s - success.
You need to stand by your decisions and be confident
in them to convince the people involved affected by
the process. Making an unpopular but necessary
decision is probably one of the most difficult tasks as
a manager, but it is, and will always be, part of an
executive’s job description.

Practical Tips:

Tip 1. Define Your Values.

Identify your personal and organizational values.

What work ethics do you live by? And what are the
organization’s core values that convinced you to work
for them?

Tip 2. Understand Your Organization’s Values.

Understand the values that your organization stands

for. It is imperative that you accept them because the
basis of all your business decisions should adhere to
these values. Make sure that the values are
represented in all aspects of the company.
Tip 3. Study Both Your Personal & Organizational
Values Closely.

Look at your personal values alongside the

organizational values. What are the
similarities/differences? What adjustments do you
need to make to your own values to be aligned with
those of your organization? It will make your work-life
much more comfortable the closer your values are
aligned with that of your organization.

Tip 4. Apply Both Values In Your Decision Making

Process.

Once you understand how your own values intertwine

with your organization, you will be able to incorporate
both sets of values in your decision making process.
You will be better guided when high stress situations
arise as you know what the non-negotiable items are
for yourself and your organization.

6. Conflict Management (Be A

Wise Counsel)
According to the American Management Association
a manager spends an at least 24% of their time
managing conflict. Conflict can happen in many areas
of business. A conflict is considered to be any issue
between two or more individuals that can potentially
disrupt work. Conflict in business may go beyond the
workplace as it can involve customers, suppliers and
even competitors.

When a conflict arises, an effective leader should be

able to jump in and resolve or at least mitigate the
conflict before it affects the business negatively.
When properly dealt with, a conflict may even turn out
to be positive for your organization.

Effective leadership means you should be good at

identifying conflict, and have foresight on how to
resolve it. It is also essential to be very rational when
faced with confrontation. Conflict management is no
doubt one of the most important leadership
competencies but Robyn Short cited a study that
found 60% of U.S. employees have not received any
conflict management skills training. Are you trained
to face conflict in the workplace?

Application:

Understand One Another.

Know what each member’s personality is. How each

is motivated or demotivated. What leadership style
they respond to best in relation to their cultural and
social backgrounds. Seek assistance from your
human resources department to provide you with
personality tests that will help you better understand
your team.

7. Negotiation (Win The

Game)
Negotiation is a process where two parties with
different ideals get together and mutually agree on
what an outcome should be. According to Skills You
Need, the process of negotiation involves 6 stages: (1)
Preparation, (2) Discussion, (3) Clarification of goals,
(4) Negotiation towards a Win-Win outcome, (5)
Agreement, (6) Implementation of a course of action.
Good negotiations can be beneficial to an
organization because they will build better
relationships. They will also help find the best long-
term solution by getting the most out of two different
sides. An effective leader must be well versed in his
negotiation style to move an organization forward.

Practical Tips:

Tip 1. Be The Leader They Can Trust.

Build trust among your team and be someone they

know they can trust. Even when a negotiation does
not turn out to be agreeable to one of the parties, if
the parties involved trust the negotiator, it will be
easier for them to accept the outcome whether it is in
their favor or not.
Tip 2. Be Democratic.

Giving options to choose from makes it easier for your

team members to make decisions. They will also feel
empowered because they were given a choice and not
just told what to do.

Tip 3. Be Silent About Your Sacrifices.

Don’t reveal that you have the weakest hand. Keep a

straight face and show that you mean business. The
other party will not be able to use your weakness to
win the negotiation.

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8. Critical Thinking (Essential

To Produce Desirable
Outcome)
Leading a business towards success is
unquestionably very challenging. To be successful, a
leader must make a lot of difficult decisions. Brandon
Hall Group shared a table which shows that critical
thinking is the top most important skill required of
leaders to successfully lead an organization.

Critical thinkers are intelligent decision makers,

highly analytical and always rational. These attributes
are essential to lead the organization towards
achieving its goal. A leader must be able to firmly
stand by his decisions. Because he is a critical
thinker, it should be safe to assume that every
decision he makes is well researched, objectively
scrutinized and that all possible outcomes were
assessed, and therefore, his final choice is the best
course of action.

9. Focus & Results

Orientation (The Road To
Success)
In a high-pressure leadership role, many events may
occur simultaneously, so it is important to develop the
skill of focusing on what matters most and know what
impact it has on your organization. In Stephen Covey’s
“7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, he included
“first things first” as the 3rd habit and explained that
leadership starts with a personal vision and personal
leadership.

You can use Covey’s time management quadrant (see

figure #11 Time-Management skill) to help you
prioritize tasks so you can focus on the important
things first. The second habit he outlined is to “begin
with the end in mind” therefore, a highly effective
leader should be results-oriented. This habit is
important because a leader needs to be able to
envision the result he wants before starting work on
it. When you are able to focus and orient yourself to
the goal you want to achieve, the path you will lead
your people on to get there will be much clearer.

10. Communication (Convey

Information Effectively)
Having good communication skills is an essential
leadership competency. One of the most challenging
management skills to find when trying to promote
managers from within the organization - especially in
a technology or manufacturing company where
people are initially hired for their skills in production -
is good communication skills.
Businesses must invest in communication
management skills training in order to give their staff
the chance to advance in their organizations rather
than exclusively hiring externally. Good
communication leads to less conflict, better
negotiation outcomes, and encourages the building of
solid relationships within the organization.

11. Time-Management
(Control Your Priorities)
With the fast-paced highly competitive nature of
businesses, employers continue to look for strong
time-management skills. Increasingly, time has a
monetary value in today’s companies. Simply
Productive says that an average manager gets
interrupted every 3 minutes. Stephen Covey suggests
the use of his time-management quadrant to
organize and prioritize tasks to be more effective. 

Workloads can easily pile up, and it can be daunting

to think about how much time you will need to finish
your work. A leader without the right time-
management skills can be easily overwhelmed and
eventually burn out.

12. Quick Feedback Ability

(The Key To Staying On Track)
Part of having good communication skills is being
able to give timely and appropriate feedback to your
employees. One of the crucial leadership
competencies required by firms today is the ability to
give feedback to appreciate, recognize, correct or
even reprimand employees.

Office vibe says that 39% of employees do not feel

appreciated at work. This quickly turns into employee
dissatisfaction and possibly high employee turnover.
According to a survey by Globoforce, 93% of
managers need training on coaching employees. It is
said that people leave their bosses, not their jobs. On
the other hand, when a leader receives appropriate
leadership training on how to effectively give
feedback, employees will feel connected and become
more engaged in the workplace.

13. Cultural Intelligence (Be

Ready For Business
Globalization)
Wikipedia states that “Cultural Intelligence can be
understood as the capability to relate and work
effectively across cultures”. The emergence of the
global economy makes cultural intelligence even
more lucrative to employers. With the constant need
to collaborate with peers from different parts of the
globe, having this managerial skill is a must.

A lot of Western companies have now expanded into

China, India and other parts of Asia, and these
companies must now include cultural intelligence in
their management skills training to equip their
executives with this very important leadership
competency, for the company to thrive and succeed in
the global market.

14. Command Responsibility

(Be The One In Charge)
Responsibility refers to the duty attached to your
position. You show good and effective leadership
skills if you take responsibility for your actions. The
higher your position in an organization, the greater
your responsibility. You become accountable for the
actions of your subordinates.

The concept of “command responsibility” stems from

legal military language used for hierarchical
accountability in war crimes. General Tomoyuki
Yamashita was prosecuted by the U.S. Supreme Court
for war crimes committed by men under his
command in the Philippines during World War 2. His
crime was failing to fulfill his duty by allowing his
men to commit those crimes. Corporations try their
best to hire the best individuals who possess the ideal
leadership competencies to avoid bottom-up failure.

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Developing your own

leadership style
15. Commitment (Be The
Leader Everyone Wants To
Work For)
Without commitment, the Wright brothers would not
have been successful in inventing the airplane. In an
organization, both leaders and employees must have
some level of commitment to their jobs for goals to
be achieved. Simon Sinek said that leaders determine
the workplace atmosphere and that the importance of
having committed leaders cannot be underestimated,
so that employees have someone to trust.

The engagement level of an organization is higher

when employees trust their leaders. A committed
leader exhibits stewardship. Bekele Geleta (Former
Secretary General of the International Federation of
Red Cross and Red Crescent) said that effective
leadership always involved stewardship and that it is a
requirement for great leadership. However,
stewardship does not happen without commitment.
16. Self-Awareness (Reach
The Highest Pinnacle)
Effective leadership means being aware of your full
potential as well as the areas you need to further
develop. One of the leadership pit-falls is
complacency or arrogance. A leader must accept that
there are things he has yet to learn. It then becomes
his responsibility to learn these things and develop
his leadership skills further to benefit himself and his
organization.

Anthony Tjan sums up self-awareness in a trinity:

know thyself, improve thyself and complement
thyself. This leadership skill however, is not only self-
focused. The ‘complement thyself’ in the trinity
involves other people. As a leader, this can be your
team that is composed of different individuals with
strengths that complement each other. You must be
aware of what value each person in your team can
bring to achieve the goals you envision. Enrolling in a
team leadership program that leads you to realize
your team’s and your own potential is a great way to
fulfil your potential as a leader.

17. Delegation (Become A

Mentor)
Delegation is an essential part of effective leadership.
Delegation does not mean offloading work so you can
have less stress as a leader. Effective delegation
means you are building the leadership skills of those
individuals who have the potential to become future
leaders.

Delegating tasks means that you trust your team

members to do more than what is expected of them.
More importantly, delegation is one of the most
important leadership competencies because it allows
you to focus on more pressing issues. Through
delegation, you are essentially mentoring your team
members. It is a form of informal management skills
training as they undertake tasks above their
paygrade.

18. Organization (Make It A

Habit)
Organizational leadership involves setting goals,
planning the execution, seeing the implementation
through, and reviewing the outcome to identify
improvement areas. It also involves returning to the
drawing board and setting new goals. Even with all
the technological advances at work, managers can
find the workplace to be a stressful environment if it
is not systematized. This is why organization skills
are an important item on your checklist of leadership
competencies that you need to learn to be an effective
leader. Operational excellence teams also play a big
role in helping managers learn organization
management skills as they help make work flows
leaner and identify defects to eliminate.

19. Consistency (Be Fair And

Avoid Favoritism)
An article entitled the 10 golden rules of effective
management listed consistency as the first rule.
Every manager has their own management style but
whatever style you use, you need to be consistent in
treating each team member equally. Complete
fairness in rewarding behaviors you want to
encourage, and in giving feedback to behaviors that
you want to discourage is essential.

Team members to managers are like children to their

parents. They will want to work hard for your
approval, but you should consistently treat everyone
the same and always avoid favoritism. Effective
leadership is being consistent in implementing your
chosen management style and leadership values so
your integrity as a leader remains solid.

20. Honesty (Keep Your Word)

Leaders need to be honest to earn the trust of their
employees. This leadership skill is more natural than
learned or trained. It is about ethics and integrity. The
CEO magazine shared that 89% of 100,000 people
surveyed say it is the most valued leadership quality.
One may ask how this is a skill, but it can truly be one
of the most effective leadership competencies, that
will win your people’s trust and make them
committed to their jobs. Teams become more
engaged if they perceive that their leaders are honest
and have integrity. Honesty makes you an effective
leader by being consistent in keeping your word and
following through with your promises to your team
members.

21. Team Building (Unity Is

Strength)
A successful organization must be cohesive. Only
leaders with effective management skills can bring
an organization towards success by putting to use all
leadership skills training regarding people
management. Bringing people from different
backgrounds and ideals can be challenging. Team
building can help you find common interests among
your team members which will promote good
teamwork. When a group works well together,
productivity improves, goals are achieved faster,
better ideas are generated, and there is less attrition,
so talent within the organization is retained.
Ultimately, when leaders of the organization have
good team building skills, the business saves hiring
and new employee training costs.

22. Emotional Intelligence

(Know Thyself)
As previously outlined, self-awareness is a key skill,
and emotional intelligence is closely tied-in with this
skill. A leader who does not possess self-awareness
as a management skill may also not possess the
required emotional intelligence to lead his team
effectively. Organizations that are more technical in
nature should invest in management skills training
that focuses on emotional intelligence to help
advance their production line staff to supervisory
roles.

The ability to empathize and listen to your peers and

team members is part of being emotionally
intelligent. To decipher a person’s emotion and know
how best to deal with it professionally may not come
instinctively to everyone so necessary leadership
skills training needs to be implemented to develop or
enhance emotional intelligence.

23. Ability To Train Other

People (Develop Yourself
First)
Statistics show that 93% of managers need training
on coaching employees. The ability to train and coach
other people is an essential management skill that
requires a manager to teach as well as give
constructive and timely feedback. The Harvard
Business Review even published an online article
entitled: “Managers aren’t doing enough to train
employees for the future.”

Organizations should include how to train people in

their leadership skills training programs. While online
leadership trainings and formal leadership skills
trainings given by the training department are
common investments for organizations, successful
organizations are full of managers who do on-the-job
training and mentor their staff. Employees feel more
connected to their managers in this set-up and
collaboration is encouraged, resulting in increased
engagement and higher productivity.

24. Ability To Go Above and

Beyond (Expend More Effort
Than the Minimum)
Every organization wants an employee who goes
above and beyond what is expected. Accenture for
example, evaluates employees on three areas and
Value Creator is one of them. To be a value creator,
means you are someone who goes above and beyond
the minimum expectation. This effective leadership
skill allows executives to drive people to do better
each time. When you go above and beyond what’s
necessary, you raise the bar and the standard
becomes higher for the next one who will be doing
the same task. So a process of continuous
improvement is created and the outcome is better
every time.

25. Confidence (No Place For

Fear)
Confident leaders make the organization appear
strong and solid to its external and internal
customers. It is critical for leaders to appear
confident to their team members who look up to
them at all times. Leaders need to make confident
decisions even when circumstances are difficult.

New leaders can benefit most from leadership

training programs that help improve their
communication skills, people management skills and
even simple personal development trainings. For
example, “dress for success” seminars can help
boost confidence for new leaders. Seasoned leaders,
on the other hand, continue to build confidence as
they gain more leadership trainings and practical
experiences in their fields.

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Leadership Skills & What It

Means For Your Business
All of the above mentioned leadership and
management skills make an effective leader who can
help lead an organization to future success. But it is
necessary for the organization to provide training
programs to support their leaders in gaining those
much-needed leadership competencies.

In Brandon Hall Group’s 2015 State of Leadership

Development Study, 71% of organizations
acknowledge that their leaders were “not ready to
lead their organizations into the future”. The lack of
confidence by organizations in their talent pool leads
them to meet immediate employment needs by hiring
externally.

Developing internal training programs can take time

and be costly, but there are existing training programs
that exist that are proven to be effective by
distinguished companies. Explore IMD’s leadership
training programs to learn the effective leadership
skills your organization needs.

For seasoned managers who need more in-depth

leadership training, discover how IMD’s High
Performance Leadership program can help you be
the effective leader your organization needs to bring
them further into the future.

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