By Jeff Gillis
Think back to a boss you had that you didn’t like. What was it about them that bothered you? What leadership skills were they lacking?
Did they ignore your suggestions? Did they task you with more work than was fair or right? Did they minimize your contributions and take the glory for themselves?
Maybe they weren’t good at explaining what they needed you to do and were impatient with you or got frustrated or angry with you when you made mistakes?
Odds are, if you’ve spent any time in the work force, you’ve either worked for, or come across someone who wasn’t a good leader.
On the other side of the fence, you have the opposite type of boss… a great leader that clearly possesses the necessary skills to be effective in her/his role.
Being a good leader is in a work place (or any situation, for that matter) is more than just bossing people around and having them do what you tell them to do. Yes, it does involve assigning tasks to people and making sure those tasks are completed, but being a good leader is much more than that, it takes leadership skills.
What Are Leadership Skills?
But what exactly are leadership skills? Well in order to understand leadership skills it helps to have a good grasp on the two main types of skills first. Skills can generally be broken down into two categories, hard skills and soft skills.
Knowing how to do your job and mastering the skills you need in order to perform that job are what are called hard skills. You learn these through training, education and experience.
In contrast, soft skills are usually interpersonal skills…or people skills. These can include things like listening skills, analytical skills and communication skills, to name a few.
In most cases (and for 99% of positions… not just leadership positions), companies look to hire individuals who have a certain combination of hard and soft skills that the company deems necessary to be effective in the job.
So how do hard and soft skills apply to leadership positions?
It is no different when hiring for leadership positions. The company is looking for the individual that best exemplifies the necessary leadership skills that will allow her/him to be a successful leader. In other words, there is a set of hard AND soft skills that are most desirable for candidates interviewing for leadership positions.
If you want to be hired for a leadership position, you need to identify what these leadership skills are and ensure that you are able to demonstrate them to your interviewer.
Don’t worry, we’ve pulled together a list of the top leadership skills hiring managers look for!
Our List of the Top 55 Leadership Skills
Here we’ve compiled a fairly comprehensive list of common leadership skills that hiring managers are often looking for:
- Analytical skills
- Business sense
- Calculated risk taking
- Coaching experience
- Commitment
- Confidence
- Collaboration experience
- Commitment
- Communication skills
- Compassion
- Competitiveness
- Conflict management and resolution
- Constructive criticism and feedback
- Coordination experience
- Courage
- Creativity
- Critical Thinking
- Decision making
- Delegation
- Enthusiasm
- Flexibility
- Goal setting and completion
- Good judgement
- Honesty
- Humor
- Humility
- Initiative
- Inspirational
- Integrity
- Listening skills
- Logical thinking
- Management skills
- Motivational skills
- Multitasking abilities
- Negotiation skills
- Networking skills
- Non-verbal skills
- Open minded
- Optimism
- Organizational skills
- Passion
- Persuasiveness
- Planning and strategy skills
- Positivity
- Problem solving
- Relationship building
- Resourcefulness
- Respectful
- Self-confidence
- Self-motivation
- Supportive
- Team building
- Trustworthiness
- Verbal communication
- Vision for the future
Putting It All Together
Of course, just stuffing your resume full of leadership adjectives won’t do you, or the hiring managers, any good. Just like any other skill you’re highlighting in your resumes, cover letters and interviews, you need to make sure they match up to the job description you’re applying for and the skills the hiring managers are looking for.
Not only that, you always need to have clear, quantifiable examples of you exhibiting those skills. Never claim to have a skill that you can’t back up with proof!
Read the job description carefully and see what leadership skills the hiring managers are emphasizing and then focus on those. By pulling those key words out, you’ll be able to better target not only your resume and cover letter, but also your interview!
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Co-founder and CTO of TheInterviewGuys.com. Jeff is a featured contributor delivering advice on job search, job interviews and career advancement, having published more than 50 pieces of unique content on the site, with his work being featured in top publications such as INC, ZDnet, MSN and more.
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