What are leadership competencies?
Leadership competencies are the traits, skills, and knowledge that a leader either already possesses or has acquired and that help to increase performance. A team’s confidence, devotion, and faith in the leader are increased by the leader’s leadership skills.
Organizations create these competencies by transforming a set of skills into on-the-job conduct that demonstrates the ability to complete the demands of the job. Strategic planning, data-driven decision-making, and business process optimization are some examples.
Related: Adding leadership skills to your resume
7 leadership competencies examples
1. Good communication
Without strong communication abilities, successful leadership is difficult. Effective communication is essential for realizing a vision, selling it to others, resolving issues, putting processes in place, leading change, and managing people. This is especially true if the team members you manage to come from varied socioeconomic backgrounds, have varying levels of experience, and may work remotely or in another country.
Collaboration and teamwork are encouraged by clear communication. It’s essential for clearly expressing your tactics and judgments. However, communication is two-way. Leaders must listen as well as be clear about what they mean and desire (across all media).
Responding sympathetically and demonstrating that you comprehend and consider various viewpoints are examples of active listening. Along with being directive, you must also be receptive. Building trust requires empathetic behavior toward others. Your intentions and decisions are more likely to be carried out when people are engaged and trust you.
Related: Important communication skills for managers
2. Developing your leadership approach
Leaders must be aware of modern enterprises’ and organizations’ rising complexity. Their leadership style is impacted by external circumstances. In today’s more democratic atmosphere, where knowledge sharing is prioritized, the old, autocratic leadership of the past is no longer appropriate. Leaders benefit more from openness to recommendations and a desire to work together than they do from pursuing isolated goals.
To get the most out of their followers, leaders must manage people. Effective managers cultivate the talent they have around them, encouraging growth for both parties. To build a team that is capable of taking on difficulties and taking on responsibility, leadership is a communal endeavor that encourages collaboration and feedback loops. Problem-solving and decision-making are not the exclusive purviews of one person. Leadership requires a collective responsibility and true leaders create a cohort of people willing to adopt leadership roles in projects.
Related: What is a Transformational Leader?
3. Growing individuals
If you don’t have the personnel to put your leadership ideas, tactics, and ambitions into action, they will all be for naught. And it goes beyond just having the necessary quantity of people or skill sets. Team management and development must be actively pursued by leaders. This entails being aware of their wants and aspirations, appreciating their contributions, and inspiring faith in your goals and the confidence to pursue them.
People that are given more freedom by their leaders are likely to have higher production and input quality as well as better staff retention. Leading others entails helping them achieve both their personal and professional goals.
Related: Learning and Development Strategies
4. Employing emotional quotient
If you don’t have a strong understanding of emotional intelligence, you won’t be able to manage and develop people effectively or actively listen to their problems. Self-awareness and a greater grasp of what inspires and drives you are encouraged by emotional intelligence.
But it also entails learning the skills and strategies for comprehending and empathizing with others. The capacity to put yourself in another person’s shoes and consider things from their perspective is one of the skills that emotional intelligence allows you to do.
5. Stress and conflict management
A leader’s responsibility is to establish a secure and productive work so that people may thrive and complete their jobs. Effective stress and conflict management are essential because, if left unattended, they can lead to the loss of valuable employees, missed days of work, and decreased productivity. Stress and conflict pose a threat to the team’s psychological well-being and capacity for productivity.
A strong emotional intelligence can help people become more resilient, which helps them deal with stress and conflict. In times of enormous uncertainty and upheaval and rapid innovation and change, this resilience will be necessary.
Related: 10 essential interpersonal skills for managers
6. Managing change and innovation
The pandemic and rapid technological progress serve as reminders of that. Even if the change is inevitable, we still get to choose how we respond to it. The difficulty lies in leading it, not just managing it. Leaders must anticipate the changes that are coming and not just act appropriately.
Key competencies demonstrating how to encourage innovation and actively accept change can be learned in courses. It comes down to developing the proper mindset, having the ability to detect the change, and cultivating a cooperative atmosphere that promotes idea exchange and innovation. Leaders should challenge their staff to think creatively and rethink their methods to see if there are any improvements. That means being aware of the latest technological tools on offer and examining the way they can be used to improve efficiency.
Related: 12 characteristics of Transformational Leadership
7. Managing remote groups
How to lead remote teams is one of the biggest issues facing today’s leaders. This can refer to a group of individuals working remotely or in workplaces spread out across the world. Trust and empathy are even more important while working remotely. This necessitates reliance on the same fundamental leadership skills, including effective communication, the use of emotional intelligence, and the application of the appropriate leadership styles. However, working remotely adds a new layer of difficulty because individuals aren’t always available for a quick chat, you can’t read their body language, and it’s harder to foster the same sense of camaraderie as in-person team meetings.
How to develop leadership competencies
1. Demonstrate discipline
A disciplined leader is effective. To be an effective leader and to encourage others to be disciplined as well, you must develop discipline in your professional (and personal) life. The level of discipline you exhibit at work will be used to evaluate your ability to lead.
By consistently meeting deadlines, maintaining appointments, and concluding meetings on time, you will exhibit discipline at work. You may have a difficult time getting organized if you are inherently disorganized, but you can always start small. Start by developing healthy routines at home, such as rising early and exercising every day, and work your way up from there.
2. Accept more assignments
Increasing your responsibility is a terrific method to improve your leadership abilities. If you want to advance, you don’t have to take on more than you can manage, but you do need to go beyond the duties listed in your job description. You can only learn something new by stepping outside of your comfort zone, and doing so will make you stand out to executives as someone who takes initiative.
3. Develop your capacity for compliance
When necessary, a good leader has no trouble ceding control to someone else. When someone criticizes your reasoning, disagrees with you, or puts up their ideas, you shouldn’t feel threatened. Be open-minded and give credit where credit is due.
Even though it won’t always be simple, if you can teach the people on your team to value and respect you, they’ll be more likely to step up to the plate when you need them.
4. Become situationally aware
Someone who can see the wider picture and foresee issues before they arise is an excellent leader. Having this ability is important when managing challenging projects with short deadlines. A leader can benefit greatly from having the capacity to anticipate issues and offer solutions.
This skill also aids in your capacity to see chances that others miss, which will undoubtedly gain you respect. Leading remote teams might make it particularly challenging to acquire this skill, but with work, you can learn to better understand your teams and projects.
5. Resolve disputes
Don’t be a terrible manager! Not everyone will always get along. Address interpersonal disputes by having a private conversation with individuals affected rather than ignoring them and hoping they would go away. Also, if the conflict cannot be resolved, be willing to reassign team members.
Related: Important leadership skills for managers
Common leadership and management competencies
Developing a team (personnel)
By employing effective communication techniques to promote commitment to shared accountability, investment in the team’s objective and purpose, and support for the success of the team and its members, leaders may bring a group of people together around a similar vision.
Emotional quotient
Using ideas like self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills to influence interpersonal interactions, leaders are proficient in comprehending and developing how they perceive and control their own and other people’s emotions.
Problem Solving
Too prevents conflicts from increasing and supports employees’ capacities for problem-solving, leaders solve problems by taking proactive actions to avoid conflicts, addressing issues when they arise, and assisting staff in finding the right information.
Decision-making based on facts
To assist in deciding whether a specific policy or program will be successful at their organization and to show its effectiveness, leaders employ research from trials, literature reviews, or other activity that gives objective knowledge on matters of interest.
Innovative thinking
Leaders position their organizations to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves by keeping abreast of significant trends and developments in the field of libraries. This allows them to move their organizations ahead from a position of strength.
Project administration
To achieve the results, learning, and integration that the project and its stakeholders demand on time and within budget, leaders take active efforts to execute, monitor, evaluate, and report on the progress of a work group tasked with producing a distinctive product, service, or result.
Advertising and lobbying
Key organizational actions and goals are developed jointly, and a leader actively looks for chances to share these objectives with both internal and external constituents.
Related: 10 Essential Managerial Competencies
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