Being a good leader in today’s world of work requires more than just having a fancy job title and glass office.
Today, successful leadership relies on a number of different soft skills such as the ability to motivate and inspire teams, and deliver creative solutions all while providing ongoing organisational success, while also keeping everyone happy. Sounds easy, right?
As the idea of hiring for soft skills gains more prominence, the focus will undoubtedly turn to leaders and the type of soft skills that they can offer in order to deliver results.
But just what soft skills do leaders need to succeed at work today?
What are leadership soft skills?
In the context of leadership, soft skills can be best described as a range of different abilities, including personality traits and attributes that can be considered an essential part of being able to succeed in leading an organisation and its people. Soft skills play a key role in demonstrating how an individual interacts with colleagues, performs work related tasks, communicates, makes decisions and builds relationships.
Check out our what are soft skills post to learn more about soft skills and why they are so highly desired in the world of work.
7 Leadership soft skills
- Empathy
Arguably one of the most important soft skills to look for in modern day business leaders. The ability to empathise with others provides better connections and allows business leaders to more easily motivate and inspire their staff.
- Communication
A key soft skill that is highly sought in the majority of jobs today. Having good communication skills plays an essential role in being a successful leader. Being able to communicate effectively, understand information accurately and quickly, and then relay this to others in a way they can understand is still considered one of the most important soft skills to have. In contrast, poor communication soft skills will lead to frequent misunderstandings and frustration from your team.
- Creativity
Creativity at work or the ability to creatively solve problems by coming up with new and novel solutions is a highly desirable leadership trait. As our lives become more digital, businesses will see an increase in the number of potential problems arising from the creation of new technology, which will in turn require more and more creative solutions in order to integrate with your current business or innovate new products to stay ahead of the game.
- Motivational skills
Being able to motivate and inspire others is one of the key indicators of good leadership. If you are leading people towards a specific goal then being able to effectively inspire and motivate your team will help you reach that goal far sooner.
- Conflict resolution
If you are running an organisation with more than a few employees then it is likely that you will experience conflict at some point in your tenure. It could be something as innocuous as facilitating a heated meeting between managers to managing a disciplinary process for something more serious. Whatever the conflict is, as a leader you will need a cool head to solve it.
- Confidence
Good leaders will tend to have a certain level of confidence in their own abilities. Confidence in leadership includes the ability to admit mistakes and then appropriately change course, act as a role model for others in the business and to bring a can-do attitude to the workplace.
- Adaptability
The ability to be flexible and adapt to changes in the workplace, adaptability is an essential soft skill for modern day leaders. Life is often full of unexpected challenges and obstacles, therefore being adaptable enough to thrive under changing circumstances is more important than ever.
Introducing the Clevry Leadership Report
The Clevry leadership model
Our Leadership Report has been specifically designed to provide a set of indicators that show someone’s leadership potential. The report uses the Clevry Leadership Model, and contains a number of areas that help to identify general potential in individuals aspiring to, or working within, a leadership role.
It is important to recognise that the qualities required of individual leaders may differ, depending on the role and the context. Organisations also require different capabilities from their leaders at different times. It is recommended that the information contained in this report should therefore be considered in the light of these specific needs.
Every individual has their own strengths and preferences when it comes to their personal leadership style. It is natural have attributes that are stronger and also some that are lower in the report.
Our leadership report looks at 4 key areas
Leading people:
Offers insight into the individual’s tendencies and preferences in relation to working with others; including connecting with peers and managing direct reports.
Leading tasks:
Looks at how the individual might approach tasks and decisions. This relates to their values, drive, and prioritisation in terms of the projects that they lead.
Leading yourself:
Explores how the individual might deal with the emotional demands that come with adopting leadership responsibilities and bearing influence over others.
Leading the way:
Details how the individual might approach leadership responsibilities that involve looking to the future and driving organisational change.
