What are the six most important skills of leadership and management?

What are the six most important skills of leadership and management?

The six most important skills every leader needs to provide are:

1. Clear vision for a better future. Goal focus.
2. Clear, accurate and persuasive communication skills.
3. Planning, organising and prioritisation skills.
4. Conflict management and negotiation skills.
5. Positive attitude based upon self-control, self-confidence, self-awareness, and self-determination.
6. Inspire a positive mental attitude in the minds of others.

1. Clear vision for a better future. Goal focus.

Leaders lead people towards a vision of a better future. Or at least, they should.

If the leader lacks vision, then they fail in their primary duty.

All great leaders are great because they offer their followers a clear vision for a better future.

If you aspire to be a leader, then ask yourself, "What is my vision for a better future?"

To lead you need a vision.

2. Clear, accurate and persuasive communication skills.

Leaders must have followers, and in order to induce people to follow, many leaders have mastered the art of oratory.

Leaders are terrific communicators.

They may have opposite styles, but both President trump and President Obama, are both Masters of Communication. In a strange way, so is Boris Johnson, whereas Theresa May did not have the gift of leadership communication.

3. Planning, organising and prioritisation skills.

In order to deliver the vision, a leader needs to develop plans capable of achieving them.

Planning, strategy and tactics, organising and prioritisation are also on our list of skills for the aspiring leader and manager.

4. Conflict management and negotiation skills.

Within the team conflict will inevitably arise. The leader must resolve internal relationships.

Lincoln said, "A divided house cannot stand".

So, leaders are often good negotiators and can to win people round to their way of thinking.

5. Positive attitude based upon self-control, self-confidence, self-awareness, and self-determination.

Before leaders can lead anyone, they must first master their own emotions. They must develop a source of confidence, motivation and belief, within themselves.

Leaders do not need outside agencies to give them motivation; their locus of control is inside their own head.

Plato said, "the greatest victory is over oneself".

6. Inspire a positive mental attitude in the minds of others.

Lastly, we come to the most immediately visible attribute of leadership, the ability to affect others.

All leaders affect others, by means of their words, their actions, their appearance, their voice tone and their body language. They hypnotise their followers into believing in the vision and in the leader.

Many leaders have had an almost hypnotic effect on their followers and that can lead to terrible outcomes, such as war; or alternatively, leaders can take the world to better outcomes, such as in the case of Florence Nightingale.

Leadership and management is a complicated skill set, with many subset parts. If you want to be a better leader, enrol on our special two day leadership skills training course, where you will learn many of the secrets.