Five Essential Skills For Leaders
One of my clients is in the process of earning her graduate degree in organizational leadership and learning.
She’s taking a course this summer on leadership development, and a recent assignment asked her to write a leadership biography of a leader she admires.
She could have taken the traditional route, choosing a well-known figure like a political leader or the CEO of a fortune 500 company.
But she was growing weary of the traditional views of leadership development that underpin the course curriculum, and she wanted to present a view of leadership that shakes things up.
She chose me!
Last week, we connected for a zoom call while she was driving cross-country and perched at a rest stop somewhere in Illinois.
She explained that the course materials included a list of 45 must-have core skills for leaders and she asked about my take on the topic.
My eyes bugged out of my head for a second.
I definitely have a take: 45 core skills for leaders is an impossible standard. It sets all leaders up for failure. It’s unwieldy and overwhelming. And it puts leadership in a place where it will always be just out of reach.
My own leadership philosophy took a while to crystallize, but it's quite simple:
Leadership is a practice, not a destination. It's not a status that you achieve when someone bestows you with a fancy title or direct reports. It is a way of showing up, a way of being every single day.
Leaders are humans. We expect our leaders to be perfect—to tick off all of the 45 boxes. But no one has the capacity to do or be it all. That's why we have teams with a mix of talents, and a leader to rally them together.
We are all leaders. No matter where you are in your life's journey—at the top of a company or the back of the kindergarten line—you can show up as a leader. It's not a someday thing. It's now if we just allows ourselves to own it.
Leadership is about how you show up when you don't know. A lot of people think that in order to be the leader, they need to have all the answers. But leadership is really about being resourceful and creative enough to move forward when the path is unclear.
If I had the opportunity to rewrite my client's course curriculum, I would tear up the list of 45 essential skills for leaders and replace it with five core skills that will make you a better leader —and a better person, too, whether you sit at the top of an organization, in middle management, or an entry-level position.
Download our free workbook here to learn more about these five essential skills for leaders, and steps you can take to deepen those skills.
