Harvard recently tweeted their answers to the question: “What leadership skills do you need most?”
The most important were:
- Inspires and motivates others
- Displays high integrity and honesty
- Solves problems and analyses issues
- Drives for results
- Communicates powerfully and prolifically
- Collaborates and promotes team work
- Builds relationships
- Displays technical or professional expertise
- Displays a strategic perspective
- Develops others
So here’s my Tuesday Tip for the week: “There you go. That’s the list. Just be better at all of them.”
Ok, not too helpful. So how about this instead?
I imagine that, as you read the list, you were thinking ‘do I do all these?’
And, assuming you don’t do all of them, the approach here is to either:
- choose 1-2 from the list and work on those; or
- identify 1-2 underlying skills which, if you improved them, would make you better at lots of the above list
Being the communication-obsessed geek that I am, it jumped out at me how communication underpins the vast majority of the list. The better you are at inspiring, leading, motivating, up-skilling and working with others, the more impactful a leader you will be.
So here’s a useful question to ask:
“What communication area would my team like me to improve on, so I become a better leader?”
You could ask yourself this question, of course.
Or you could ask your team.
And, since one way to judge a leader is to look at how impressive their team is, improving your communications to them will make a huge difference – to both them and you.
Action point
Identify the one area from the list where an improvement would have a big impact (the ideal: the improvement’s relatively easy to make. You want maximum benefit for manageable input).
Then, bust guts to improve at it. If it’s communication-based, let me know and I’ll give you some pointers. If it’s something else, identify the best, easiest and quickest way to become better at it – coaching, training, mentoring, ask the Office Superstar for advice, and so on.
Then of course help yourself remember to do it – peer support and recurring diary reminders are always a useful start.