How to develop leadership skills?

We often hear some people described as “natural leaders,” as if they were born with the innate ability to inspire others and make decisions.

Certainly genetics can determine the personality traits that contribute to success by holding leadership roles, but at the same time we should not forget that leaders are not born such, but become so, which means that one can always learn and develop practical leadership skills.

But what makes an effective leader?

Influential leaders know how to inspire people and support them in achieving their goals. Although they may have different leadership styles, all leaders share some common characteristics, such as always being clear about their expectations, being compassionate when necessary and always consistent, being able to give confidence to their employees and to encourage them, and finally, being organized and having an overview of their business.

Successful leaders are also resilient, have exceptional decision-making skills and take responsibility for their actions. Ultimately, being a leader means being able to win the trust of other people, who freely choose to follow the directives suggested to them so as to make the right decisions for the good of the group.

Effective leadership has 4 essential peculiarities: communication, influence, learning agility and self-awareness. These are skills that cut across production sectors, locations and positions, and most successful leaders know how to develop and exploit them in their daily work. Let’s find out more about them.

Regarding communication, successful leaders know how to express and explain ideas so that all team members know the goals, expectations, and tasks of each project. They are active listeners and can express themselves clearly when speaking or writing. In many ways, communication skills lay the foundation for other core leadership skills and contribute significantly to establishing and maintaining trust in the organization.

As for influence, effective leaders influence and motivate the people they work with to achieve and exceed goals. Their ability to influence comes from the relationships they build with others: they take the time to understand the people they work with and, with this knowledge, can show team members how to benefit from their work.

Leaders, to keep themselves as such, must continue to seek out learning opportunities, even when they reach a leadership position. Learning comes in many forms, including training courses, certificates and degrees. However, learning for a leader also means looking back, considering past experiences-both successes and failures-as opportunities to examine one’s behavior, knowledge, and adaptability.

Finally, leaders take time to understand what motivates them to work in their field and pursue leadership roles. They know their strengths and weaknesses and carve out moments to reflect on their life and work experiences to continuously improve. Such self-awareness enables them to set goals and seek opportunities for growth to improve their leadership skills.

To improve one’s leadership skills, it can also be helpful to read books on leadership, which allow one to analyze common situations and then apply them to oneself. In other words, to lead others effectively, one must first lead oneself.

The reason why books on leadership are so useful is because of the ideas and insights they present between their pages, which are then implemented within the framework of precise strategies of which the texts also show the final results.

The way to improve one’s listening skills is to practice active listening, a type of listening that differs both from hearing, understood as the physiological ability to take in sounds, and from listening in the sense of making perceived sounds rationally intelligible; active listening can be defined as listening with the heart, an effort that, consciously, one makes to listen not only to the words that the other person is saying but, more importantly, to the complete message that is being communicated, accepting it fully without any value judgment or prejudice.

For this to actually happen, it is necessary to pay attention to the interlocutor very carefully, without becoming distracted and without becoming bored and losing focus. For a leader, active listening has many benefits: becoming better listeners implements productivity and the ability to influence others, persuade and negotiate, as well as to smooth out conflicts and misunderstandings.

Hiring a Business Coach is undoubtedly one of the best ways to avoid many of the mistakes that could waste time and money, which is especially useful if you are in a management role or leading a startup. Even if you have a long and solid track record in your professional field, a business coach can help you break out of a slump, find new ideas, seek out valuable resources, and more.

After all, if you want to become good at something you always need a coach, ever since you were a child, when parents and teachers represent the coaches who teach you how to walk, talk, write, and do math.

Similarly, a coach can help in several ways. Beginning with supporting, those in roles of responsibility to improve their ability to act as a true compass for the company, navigating the ocean of business–an ocean often full of pitfalls–while keeping a steady course toward the goals to be achieved.

Finally, a coach can support the leader in overcoming the barriers that stand in the way of achieving professional goals and, in the case of newly launched startups, to get off to the best possible start by laying the foundation for a successful future. In such cases, it may happen that the need for training paths emerges for both the leader and the entire company team. In such cases, the coach can direct them toward such courses or, if he or she has the skills, suggest that coaching be combined with or substituted for a classroom course.