Top Ten Leadership Skills

What would you put in a top ten list of leadership skills?

Drawing on:

• Leadership theory
• Staff surveys & Questionnaires
• My own experiences of being a leader
• My own experiences of have been led and been part of many teams

My Top Ten (in alphabetical order) are:
1. Act assertively
2. Communication
3. Critical Reflective Learning
4. Feedback - Giving & receiving
5. Forward thinking / Strategic planning
6. Know your self
7. Know your team
8. Manage team performance
9. Provide vision & Direction
10. Transformational Leadership

There are many contradictory theories, models and books examining whether leaders are born or made. Trait theorists Carlyle and Galton argued than great leaders had traits or characteristics that were unique to them and could not be developed or learned.

After questioning over 600 managers, Kouzes and Posner defined 10 key leadership qualities as:

1. Honest

2. Forward looking

3. Inspirational

4. Competent

5. Fair minded

6. Supportive

7. Broad minded

8. Intelligent

9. Straight forward

10. Dependable

These 10 qualities were used to develop their Leadership Challenge Model

Ralph Stogdill looked at this notion another way in that leadership qualities are difficult to define - the ‘je ne sais quoi’ factor.

For me leaders learn by:

• ‘Mirroring’ behaviors they have seen others use

• Learning by ‘trial and error’

• Picking it up ‘on the job’

• Moving from transactional to transformational practice

If you like to learn more I have a free full sized ebook at http://bookboon.com/en/business-ebooks/career/top-ten-leadership-skills-book-1