How to Improve Your Leadership Skills

Within business you will always have someone who needs to step up to the plate and bring leadership skills to the table.  Let’s face it you can be technically gifted in whichever career you are involved in however if you have no leadership skills you are going to struggle with progression.  This path is not going to be for everybody but if you feel passionate within your role and want to move to the next step in your career take a look over some tips I have included below that will help you on your journey.

Initiative

When having a particular role within the work place you will be used to your day to day task and responsibilities you are set.  When you are in a situation where you feel like you excel and continue to perform with the tasks set for you always try to use your initiative to start your progression.  How to do this?  When your roles objectives are complete try to take on side tasks and take in as much information as you can.  This shows your employers your dedication / commitment to learning and taking on more responsibility.  The more knowledge and responsibility you take on the more it is going to help you with your leadership skills.

Vision

It is all good gaining knowledge and responsibility however if you do not have a clear vision with where you want to be it can be pretty pointless.  Give yourself a plan and strive to achieve every goal you set, you can even create yourself a personal business checklist that you can mark off as you go.  Having a strong vision will show to your employer that you are not just there to tread water and that you have enough self-confidence to move to the next step.  Where do you see yourself within the next 5 years?  Sound familiar? It is a question that all of us have heard before and it’s asked for a reason, there is no way that you can excel with in leadership if you are not striving towards your goals.

Foreseeing

A strong advantage if you want to be given more leadership within your career, a skill shown by all leaders is foreseeing probable problems in the future.  This is a skill that can come naturally but if not do not worry, try studying past business trends or try to nip current smaller problems before they snowball into something business critical.  I have been speaking recently with Marc Leder about how important this is to any leader who is looking to get to a higher profile job role.  Leder is the Co-Chief Executive of Sun Capital Partners and oversees leveraged buyouts and business operations and has been doing so for over 25 years.  Leder started out with Sun Capital back in 1995 with a managing director role and has excelled throughout the business ever since.  Foreseeing isn’t all about intervening before potential problems arise, like Leder you need to be able to be aware of potential opportunities that will help yourself and the business.

Listening 

It is all good and well to be able to delegate and make your voice heard as a leader but you also need to show that you are able to listen.  If you don’t have the ability to listen you are going to get nowhere, you will not be able to progress and be the best you can be without taking on constructive feedback.  Not only will this help better yourself but you will also gain a lot of respect from your colleagues, not listening to them is only going to give you a negative reputation and stump your progression.  Use your skills and let others help you and you will be well on your way to your dream role.