At a certain point in your career, your growth will start depending more on soft skills than the hard ones. And the leadership ability is one of the game-changing soft skills that determine your career success. The willingness to accept responsibility, set goals and encourage your subordinates are crucial to make it to the top of the corporate ladder in any industry.
Luckily, you can develop these abilities even if you don’t consider yourself a naturally good leader. It only takes practice, persistence and understanding of your strengths and weaknesses to become a confident and effective manager. Today, our executive resume writers will throw light on the steps you need to take to grow as a leader.
Become a better leader: 7 tips
Whether you’re just planning to obtain a management position or you’re an experienced leader looking to achieve better results, pay attention to these steps of developing leadership skills:
Step 1. Become organized and disciplined
It’s hard to imagine an ambitious, effective leader who has a cluttered desk, forgets to assign the new project to a team or fails to follow up with a client. Being disciplined and organized will help you to oversee the processes and make sure that everything is done on time. Moreover, these qualities will set a perfect role model for the rest of the team.
Does your discipline lag behind? Try the small things – declutter your desktop, sort out things on your desk, and create long-term plans. Write daily to-do lists to make sure that things go as planned, add the important meetings and events to your calendar so that you don’t miss something important, and value the time of others. These tiny actions will help you actually accomplish more while staying on schedule.
Step 2. Learn how to delegate
The biggest challenge for aspiring leaders is learning how to delegate. They are concerned with the success of a project and fail to entrust the important things to subordinates, which often results in late nights and disengaged team. On the flip side, when you identify the best people for certain tasks and delegate them without micromanaging, things will be done on time.
More importantly, your team will feel valued and appreciated if you trust them and give the opportunity to build on their skills. After all, your task as a leader is to see the big picture and keep your hand on the pulse of the project’s success rather than watching over the shoulders of your employees.
Step 3. Gain unpaid leadership experience
If you are only considering moving to the managerial side of things and feel that you crucially lack leadership abilities, try working as a leader on an unpaid basis. You might want to become a charity board member or apply for the other leadership role with a non-profit or volunteering organization. Look for organizations associated with your industry – the relevance of your experience boosts your chances to get in.
Why is it important? If you don’t have a leadership role model or aren’t confident enough that you’re ready for a career progression, this side experience will help you build skills and boost your self-esteem. Moreover, volunteering works great for expanding your professional connections, which is also helpful for ambitious leaders.
Step 4. Hone your communication skills
Communication abilities are the cornerstone of any successful leadership. Miscommunication causes a lot of problems, from a misunderstanding of tasks and failed deadlines to bad interpersonal relationships and a lack of recognition. So, identify your weak areas in communication (for instance, you are afraid of speaking up in public or during meetings) and practice them as often as you can until it becomes your second nature.
Effective communication has a lot to do with other aspects of interpersonal relationships between your team members such as the motivation of others, active listening and conflict resolution. All these skills require the ability to hear the other person’s point of view, understand their position and work out the compromise so that everyone is satisfied.
Step 5. Learn to see the big picture
One of the top traits of an effective leader is vision, and this is more than just another buzzword. Seasoned leaders can literally anticipate the upcoming challenges and address them proactively. It helps them save time, money and manage unpredictable circumstances. This skill is usually built from experience, observation, and understanding of your industry and its latest trends. By simply analyzing case studies and observing the work of others, you can start developing your own leadership vision.
Attention to detail will also help you when it comes to building effective teams. From now on, start observing your subordinates (or team members if you’re not a leader yet) and interacting with them. Understand their approach to work, their values, challenges they are facing and more. This will help you find a key to motivating them as well as help bring the best people together.
Step 6. Make sure that your resume is current
As a rule, people remember about their resume only when they have a new job in mind or a serious chance to get a promotion. Meanwhile, if you’re aiming for a leadership position, your resume should be written in a different way. You need to upgrade the appearance making it more solid, add some figures and percentages, and accentuate your soft skills first.
If you feel that you would benefit from some help, contact custom resume writing service. Experienced resume consultants will offer suggestions for making your resume better or even assist with the creation of a brand new one. By the way, on our website you can have your resume evaluated by a resume pro for free.
Step 7. Never stop learning
Good leaders never stop challenging themselves, learning new skills, and stepping out of their comfort zone. Learning more effective leadership tactics, staying up to date with the trends in the industry and implementing the new practices for motivating and inspiring others... the potential for growth is almost limitless. Never miss a chance to learn something new – not only it will keep your mind fresh and sharp, but also set a great example for subordinates.
If you feel like learning something and advancing your skills right now, sign up for an online leadership course or develop the skill which would make you more productive. Investments in education always pay off.
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