Developing leadership skills is beneficial not only for your professional life but also for your personal life. Learning these skills can have a significant impact on those around you.
Whether you are at the beginning stages of your career or are looking to be a leader in your industry, you never know where your career path may take you. Therefore, developing these skills is worth your time and ultimately can help you for the rest of your life.
Developing your leadership skills can also help you become more self-aware, motivated, and successful.
Here are 10 personal leadership skills you can start to adopt today that can help take you to the next level:
Create Internal Awareness
When you have internal awareness, you are in tune with your emotions. You no longer go through the day-to-day without considering how you feel or how you handled things but instead are highly mindful.
When you have internal awareness, you can critique yourself and note your strengths and weaknesses. Through this ability, you can see where the areas of improvement lie.
When you have developed this skill, you are highly aware of your emotions, thoughts, and feelings.
Stop and think for a second about how you react during different daily circumstances.
Are you able to frequently control your emotions?
How do you act when something doesn’t go your way?
Practice raising your awareness through mindfulness, reflection, and journaling. As you reflect on how your day went or how you handled a situation, try to view it from a lens outside of yourself.
Is there anything you can do differently next time?
Do your best to maintain an objective standpoint.
Be Adaptable
If there’s one thing we can all count on, it’s that nothing stays the same.
Change is inevitable.
As much as we want things to stay the same when they’re going well, it’s usually only a matter of time before we will need to take a different course of action.
Pause for a moment and, without judgment, think about how you reacted when Covid first began.
Although it was a major shock to the world, how do you think you did when it came to handling that time in your life?
Even though it was a devastating time, there was definitely an opportunity to navigate that time frame in all different ways. Some chose to start a new hobby, others took up a new fitness regime, and many got creative to stay connected.
Being adaptable and flexible when it comes to change is priceless. It’s essential to navigate change confidently and remain as professional as possible to be effective at being a leader.
When change occurs, the first thing that needs to happen is to think about the pivot plan.
How will you navigate the situation now that there is a change?
How will you continue to be a leader even if you disagree with new changes?
Effective, influential leaders have a positive and professional response to change and set a clear path on how to move forward during moments of uncertainty.
See Failure As A Positive Part Of The Process
We often view failure as a negative consequence. Yet, every person that has ever been successful will tell you that they have failed numerous times.
The next time you experience a setback, challenge yourself to stay focused on the positives in every situation.
It won’t do you any good to put your energy on your failures, so instead, change your mindset and ask yourself:
What are the lessons I can learn from this situation?
How can I handle this differently the next time it happens?
Maintain Resiliency
When you are resilient, you can handle setbacks and adversity with confidence.
Resiliency plays a significant role in leadership because you can bounce back more efficiently when things don’t go as planned.
Ruminating over hardships or setbacks can take up significant energy and further prevent growth and forward-thinking.
During challenging experiences, on a scale of 1-10, how do you believe you handle a difficult situation? If you tend to shut down and want to give up or choose avoidance as a method of dealing, you may not yet be very resilient.
The good news is that resiliency can be learned like many other leadership skills.
As you practice becoming more resilient, you will learn to hone in on what actions must be taken to move forward.
You may even notice you shift from being problem-focused to solution focused.
Related: 5 Strategies To Become More Resilient
Be Open To Constructive Criticism
Constructive criticism allows us to see ourselves through a new lens.
We may not always be cognizant of our weak spots, but being open to guidance may help us address those weaknesses.
It’s important to learn to utilize valuable input from others. It is not a time to try and play the “know it all” card. We must be open to advice and be willing to listen while keeping an open mind.
Constructive criticism should provide meaningful advice meant to help support you with specific recommendations.
It typically comes from someone who has more experience than you and can offer sound advice because they have been in a similar situation before or have been through a similar hardship and see solutions more clearly.
This type of advice is not to be confused with put-downs or belittling. Instead, look for meaningful advice that provides you with a plan of action rather than personal attacks.
Be Mindful Of How Your Actions Will Affect Others
Every day the decisions we make not only affect us, but they also affect those around us.
It’s important to consider the repercussions your decision-making will have on those other than yourself. For example, let’s say you are getting ready to head out on vacation and decide not to tie up any loose ends at work because you are too excited about your upcoming trip.
The week you are gone, your team is significantly impacted because you were careless and didn’t feel like communicating with your team.
As much as we want to only think about ourselves and what is in our best interest, we must realize that we are not the only ones affected by our choices.
As you make your decisions make sure they are aligned with your values and morals and continue to ask yourself:
What is the impact this decision will make on my colleagues, society, and my community?
Be An Active Listener
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that a productive conversation means you listen to understand rather than respond.
Think about that for a second.
How often are you chatting with someone, and they say something that sets off a light bulb in your mind? You may even want to cut the person off and tell them your thoughts.
Or maybe you can hold onto that thought, but you are so deep into that thought, waiting to say your opinion on the matter, that you lose some of the remaining conversation.
When you become so encompassed in how you’re going to respond, you’re no longer fully listening.
Get in the habit of filing those thoughts away quickly so that you can remain focused on what the person is saying so that you don’t miss other valuable points in the conversation.
Be Empathetic
When you are an empathetic person, it means you take the time to view a circumstance through another person’s eyes.
Many times that can mean a willingness to have a different perspective.
This habit allows you to recognize what it would feel like if you were going through a similar situation.
Empathy allows us to bridge our separation from others’ feelings, even if we don’t necessarily have the same opinion on a topic or subject matter.
Ask For Feedback From Those You Trust
Asking for feedback is not always easy.
It can be challenging to hear the opinions of what others think of us, especially if someone has something negative to say.
Yet, when we hear the opinions of others, it allows us to see how we are perceived outside of ourselves.
Think of others’ opinions as your potential blind spots.
While we may think of ourselves in one way in our minds, others may view us differently.
You don’t have to agree with everything someone thinks or says about you. However, it allows us the opportunity to see ourselves differently.
Then, you can take that information and do with it what you please.
Have A Plan To Leave A Legacy
Part of your professional and personal plan should be deciding how you want to be remembered.
When you think about a legacy, be mindful of what you want people to say, feel, or act because of your impact on them.
Also, consider some of the things you want to leave behind.
Is there a book you could write?
Are there changes you want to make within your organization that could affect others for many years to come?
Are there skills, wealth, or resources you would like to pass on to others?
Planning to leave a legacy helps you think about a purpose bigger than yourself.
What other leadership skills do you believe are helpful? I would love to hear in the comments.
Other reads you may enjoy that can help with your leadership skills:
50 Goal Setting Ideas That Will Change Your Life