Essential Leadership Skills

Strong leaders, throughout an organization, are critical to its success. It is not enough to have leaders with a vision, those leaders have to develop people throughout their organization who can support their strategies and act as a catalyst for change. Developing leaders remains an elusive characteristic for organizations today. As upcoming demographic changes send thousands of baby boomers into retirement, developing leaders to take their place becomes an even greater challenge. Without planning the knowledge bleed that will take place will dramatically effect organizations in a negative manner. This makes developing leadership abilities an even greater challenge as organizations work to remain competitive in the future.

Wise companies create a plan to not only reap the knowledge before it walks out the door, but also gives leadership capabilities to those who are to follow. Some of the most important skills include:

Effective Communication Skills: The ability to communicate effectively is an essential component of an influential leader. This becomes even more of a challenge as those stepping into the leadership role have relied heavily on technology to communicate. Research with children has found that people who text a lot may be more uncomfortable with face-to-face communication. The irony is work gets accomplished through relationships, so communicating face-to-face is an important skill that needs to be developed if new leaders are to effectively guide their organization.

Emotional Intelligence: Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a person’s ability to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others through self-awareness, self-management, social awareness (or empathy), and relationship management. The goal is to recognize these skills in yourself and work to improve areas in which would enable you to improve your relationships. We all know brilliant people who do not have an interpersonal bone in their body. How successful are they in the workplace? Daniel Goleman who coined the term in 1995 has found direct ties between emotional intelligence and measurable business results.

People Management: The ability to lead people in a way which meets their personal needs and the goals of the organizations is of critical importance. To manage people in a manner that leaves them feeling supported and engaged is of utmost importance. This means leadership development skills which help a leader understand how to engage and motivate people are essential. If a person understands that people want to feel listened to and appreciated for the work they do, they can create a process that empowers their people to become the best they can be. This is especially important working with the youngest workers today who request and require mentoring. Great leaders give people clear goals and objectives and the skills and tools to be successful.

To succeed in business today, organizations need to create a process that will enable the Boomers knowledge to be harvested by creating opportunities for cross-generational relationships. Then by offering new leaders the skills to succeed the organization will reap the benefits of productivity and profitability.