When you are leading a team, there are some must-have leadership skills in the workplace. After all, if you aren’t looking out for your coworkers, then they won’t help look out for you. All of these skills are leading you towards mutual respect amongst the team.
Table of Contents
Leadership Skills in the Workplace
- Negotiation Skills
- Communication
- Approachability
- Common Team Goals
- Confidence
Let’s break down the leadership skills in the workplace that you must have to be successful for any length of time. Now there are lots of supervisors and manager out there who do some of these things well, but the very best leaders will have all of these skills.
Negotiation Skills
The first skill you need is negotiation skills. It doesn’t seem like this would be essential, but no leader completely avoids conflict. Knowing your position, how to gain the upper hand and properly negotiate will help you move yourself and your team members forward.
One of the ways I’ve improved my Negotiation skills was reading the book Never Split the Difference. Chris Voss has some great insight and uses real-world examples to show you how you can improve.
Communication
The fact that communication is on this list as one of the leadership skills needed in the workplace shouldn’t be a surprise. If you can’t communicate with managers above you, with your team members, and other co-workers effectively then you probably shouldn’t be a leader. That sounds harsh, but it’s the reality.
Clearly and consciously sharing with your team both the positives and negatives helps you gain respect. If you don’t love a decision, it’s okay to tell them that. Telling co-workers about something and why we have to do it despite not loving
Being truthful makes you more human too. Often team members put their supervisors on a pedestal, and we need to remind them we are just people also. In turn, you will gain their respect by being honest with them.
Approachability
Having a group of people scared to share with you the pitfalls they see sets your team up for failure. You need to encourage everyone within your organization to share landmines with you. Mines are those issues that are just waiting for the right circumstances to expose them which will be detrimental.
Talk with your team members regularly and encourage them to share these things with you. Once someone shares it with you, do something about it. Ignoring the problem and your team member who just got vulnerable with you doesn’t make the issue go away and hurts your credibility.
Common Team Goals
Another of my must-have leadership skills in the workplace is common team goals. Setting goals not only as individuals but as a team is a great way to have common objectives. The individual career goals of each person should then somehow support the team goals. You can all share these to track accountability.
Setting up this spider web of goals helps your team members as well because they will be forced to work together. Bonded teams always do better than those who don’t know or lack the motivation to get to know one another on a personal level. If you believe in someone, you are much more likely to push them forward into success than some stranger.
Confidence
As a leader, you must be confident in your decisions. You must be confident in your interactions. Additionally, you must be confident enough in yourself to admit when you’ve made a mistake. Learning how to project this confidence within your team by mentoring others will help you immensely.
Figuring out what tasks are actually priorities will help you manage your time most effectively. This is harder than it sounds. That is why I’ve created a workbook to help you figure this all out. Let’s get your actual business and life priorities straightened out.
