Essay on Skills of Leadership Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

These skills are highly sought after by employers as they involve dealing with people in such a way as to motivate, enthuse and build respect. Here at skillsyouneed you'll find lots of information that can help you to understand and develop your leadership potential. They can be applied to any situation where you are required to take the lead, professionally, socially and at home in family settings. Ideally, leaders become leaders because they have credibility, and because people want to follow them.

two questions which are often asked are: what exactly is a leader? and how is being a leader different from being a manager? take a look at our pages lsquo what is a leader? rsquo and lsquo leadership is not management rsquo to find out more. many people also wonder if leadership can really be taught. people with vested interests academics and those offering leadership training or literature of some sort are convinced that it can. For them leadership is a state of mind, and it is their personalities and traits that make them successful leaders.

one of the most important aspects of leadership is that not every leader is the same. of course we have all heard jokes about lsquo mushroom rsquo leadership keep them in the dark and feed them on manure and lsquo seagulls rsquo swoop in, squawk, and drop unpleasant things on people , but joking aside, there are many different styles of leadership. Different leadership styles are appropriate for different people and different circumstances, and the best leaders learn to use them all. Take our quiz what sort of leader are you? to discover which styles you use and which may need further development. See our pages on leadership styles and developing your leadership style for more. Leadership is all about having a vision of where you want to be and working to achieve that vision. Alongside strategic thinking go organising and action planning, both essential for delivery of your vision and strategy, and risk management to help you avoid things going wrong, and manage when they do. Leaders also need to be able to make good decisions in support of their strategy delivery.

See our decision making section on for further information and guide to effective decision making. effective problem solving is therefore another key leadership skill. Problems can become opportunities and learning experiences, and a leader can gain much information from a problem addressed. See our problem solving pages for more about solving problems effectively.

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leaders also need to be very organised on a personal level, and able to manage themselves and their time, so that they can spend time doing what they need to do, and not on other tasks. As well as organising their time and their teams, leaders need to spend a bit of time on themselves, and particularly on their self motivation. A leader who lacks self motivation will struggle to motivate others, as people are quick to detect a lack of sincerity. Leaders need skills in working with others on a one to one and group basis, and a range of tools in their armoury to deal with a wide range of situations. one of the first skills that new leaders need to master is how to delegate. this is a difficult skill for many people but, done well, delegation can give team members responsibility and a taste of leadership themselves, and help them to remain motivated. Leaders also need to know how to give others their views on personal performance in a way that will be constructive rather than destructive, and also hear others rsquo opinions of them.

Leaders then need tools to help them understand the way that others behave, and create positive interactions. See our pages on working in groups for general information, and pages on what are groups and teams? for an introduction to the topic. However, leaders spend much of their time in one particular group situation, meetings, so they need to have particular skill in chairing and managing meetings.

However, for all that this description implies that these qualities are intrinsic, they can be developed and improved over time. These qualities include charisma, that quality of lsquo brightness rsquo which makes people want to follow a leader, assertiveness, which enables that person to make their point without aggression, but firmly, and empathy, understanding of how others feel. assertiveness and understanding empathy for more information. One way to understand leadership qualities is in terms of emotional intelligence, an umbrella term that describes how well we relate to others and to our own feelings. These skills are general interpersonal skills, not specific to leadership, but successful leaders tend to show high levels of skill when communicating. Good leaders tend to be extremely good listeners, able to listen actively and elicit information by good questioning.

They know how to build rapport quickly and effectively, to develop good, strong relationships with others, whether peers or subordinates. They are usually very good at public speaking, equally skilled at getting their point across in a formal presentation or board meeting, or in an informal meeting or casual corridor conversation. They have strong negotiation skills, in the broadest sense, in terms of reaching win win situations and making sure that they know their lsquo bottom line rsquo. They have also honed their ability to communicate in difficult situations, usually by practice over time. effective speaking and communicating in difficult situations for more. the concise guide to leadership ebook learn more about the skills you need to be an effective leader. our ebooks, ideal for new and experienced leaders, provide you with the practical information you need to develop your leadership skills and thrive.

Leaders are people who do the right thing managers are people who do things right. Bennis leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. An explorer, cutting a path through the jungle for the rest of his group to follow. Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to win as a team or an organization and it is dynamic, exciting, and inspiring. Yet, while leaders set the direction, they must also use management skills to guide their people to the right destination, in a smooth and efficient way. In particular, we'll discuss the transformational leadership model, first proposed by james macgregor burns and then developed by bernard bass. This model highlights visionary thinking and bringing about change, instead of management processes that are designed to maintain and steadily improve current performance.

Leadership means different things to different people around the world, and different things in different situations. For example, it could relate to community leadership, religious leadership, political leadership, and leadership of campaigning groups. This article focuses on the western model of individual leadership, and discusses leadership in the workplace rather than in other areas. An effective leader is a person who does the following:

    creates an inspiring vision of the future. In business, a vision is a realistic, convincing and attractive depiction of where you want to be in the future.

    Vision provides direction, sets priorities, and provides a marker, so that you can tell that you've achieved what you wanted to achieve. To create a vision, leaders focus on an organization's strengths by using tools such as porter's five forces. They think about how their industry is likely to evolve, and how their competitors are likely to behave. And shape their businesses and their strategies to succeed in future marketplaces.

    And they test their visions with appropriate market research, and by assessing key risks using techniques such as scenario analysis . Therefore, leadership is proactive ndash problem solving, looking ahead, and not being satisfied with things as they are. Once they have developed their visions, leaders must make them compelling and convincing. A compelling vision is one that people can see, feel, understand. Effective leaders provide a rich picture of what the future will look like when their visions have been realized.

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