A Career Coach Who Understands

While some people seem to be born leaders, the truth is that anyone can be an effective leader if they develop the core skills necessary for effective leadership. You should work on developing these skills whether you plan to climb the corporate ladder or not. These skill sets can help you get the most out of your position no matter what level it is at.

A good manager will develop the following leadership skills:

• Giving and Receiving Information – Learning to gather information from staff and reporting to your supervisors is a skill that requires knowing the right questions to ask and how to ask them.
• Understanding Needs and Characteristics of Employees – Every staff member has different needs and characteristics based on their marital status, whether they have children or not and their personality. A good manager will take these into consideration when assigning tasks and duties to get the most out of their employees.
• Knowing and Understanding Employee Resources – The best leaders know and understand their staff’s strengths and weaknesses and will use those strengths to the best advantage of the team.
• Managing Employees – As the team leader it is necessary to develop the  people  skills needed get the most of your team. This includes setting rules and enforcing them.
• Counseling Employees – Since your team is comprised of individuals there are bound to be some difficult times. Learning how to give advice is essential.
• Setting the Example- Good leaders know that if they expect their staff to get their hands dirty they need to be willing to get in the trenches themselves. “Do as I say and not as I do” is not a good habit to get into. A team is only as good as it’s leader so you need to lead by example.
• Representing Your Employees – As a team leader, you should have the skills to speak for your team. You are the go-between for relaying staff ideas and concerns to your superiors.
• Planning Skills – Excellent planning and organization skills are vital to good leadership. Mapping out the work to be done, who will do it and when will ensure you always meet your deadlines and goals.
• Evaluation Skills – You must develop analytic skills to evaluate both employees and plans to make sure your team objectives are being met.
• Delegating Work – As a team manager it is your job to delegate the workload to your team members. Learning to allow others to perform the work without micro-managing them is important.
• Training Management – Your team needs to stay on top of the latest technology and information as well as develop new skills. Securing additional education and training for your team as well as training and orientating new team members is a core management skill.

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