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If you’re looking to take on a leadership role in the future, it’s important to know what skills the role requires. That’s what I’m talking about in today’s issue.
The experts I spoke to listed six skills needed for this position.
1. communication: Communicate your ideas clearly to your team. How you do it is also important. Simply delegating tasks openly is not enough.
- Jessica Gondim, Manager at Companhia de Estágios, says, “Good leaders support their employees and are there for their employees and provide support.”
Use your position to talk to people from different areas of your company. This allows you to not only build connections with other individuals, but also create more space to talk about topics outside of your area of expertise, said the experts I spoke to.
2. Emotional Intelligence: It is the ability to manage one’s emotions. These are obvious things, but they have to be said. Great leaders are able to remain calm during tense moments and don’t express their concerns to their team.
- “I don’t think people who explode and make bad decisions are ready to take on leadership roles,” Gondim says.
In this regard, it is important to have sufficient knowledge about yourself. If you’re going through a stressful situation and you know it’s affecting you, it can be helpful to step away for a few minutes and calm down.
↳ We have already written an edition on the importance of this skill and how to improve it. Please read here.
3. Sense of ownership: When a leader has this kind of commitment and concern, teams tend to repeat the leader’s actions. Managers at Companhia de Estágios exemplify how they apply this skill in their daily lives. Whenever her team executes a project, she tries to convey this sentiment to every employee involved in its execution.
Be deeply involved in your team’s tasks, regardless of your level within the company. This will help you recognize the request as if it were your own, and you can show your interest in making the project work.
4.Adaptability: Achieve good results even in the most diverse and unfavorable situations. Change happens. As a boss, you need to understand that projects will take unexpected turns with funding cuts, deadlines moved up, and team changes. Coming up with new plans and implementing them with the same commitment is essential for anyone leading a team.
Never stop studying and updating yourself. For example, reading the daily news is a way to stay updated on what’s happening around you. Taking on new projects also expands your problem-solving abilities.
Learn technology: Artificial intelligence tools are here to stay. “Those who don’t learn to use it to their advantage, to automate processes, (…) to accelerate results, will likely be out,” says Flavia Mesquita, a leader mentor.
Always try to incorporate AI into your daily life as an accessory. If you have a problem, look for courses to improve the subject or ask people on your team for help.
6. Inclusion and diversity: It’s about having people with the most diverse profiles and leveraging what they have the most value to offer.
- “There’s no point in having people in-house just for quotas or marketing the company. Without us, we can’t really utilize the best that those people have,” points out a leadership mentor.
Discover the stories of the people you work with. “It gives you a different view of the world,” Mesquita explains. Create connections, eliminate bias, and truly increase the diversity of ideas.
These skills don’t just need to be developed or improved when you step into a leadership position. “The more you do something, the better you get at it. It’s really the power of habit,” Gondim says.
If you realize that you are having difficulty at some point and understand that this is important for management, the sooner you start working on improving it, the better prepared you will be when this skill is needed.
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