Developing Your Leadership Skills to Boost Your Effectiveness and Influence

by Kevin R. McNulty

It takes hard work, courage and taking risks to be a leader. You have to be able to find solutions to problems and make things better while not falling apart yourself. As a leader it’s important to model the way for people to follow and doing things that will influence employees to trust, communicate and have confidence in you. You can do this by demonstrating specific attitudes, skills and behaviors.

To boost your effectiveness and become more influential as a leader, you also have to determine and understand your role. Your leadership role can vary depending on the organization’s need. And that need may necessitate you exploring your potential in various areas and then growing your knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs).

For instance, some leader’s primary role is as a visionary. As examples, the late Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are considered great visionary leaders. Jobs built the Apple empire with the vision of a “computer for the rest of us” and Gates (and Paul Allen) had a vision of a “computer on every desk and in every home.” These leadership qualities (along with others), clearly influenced massive amounts of “followers.”

Then there are the leaders whose primary strength and influence comes from other core leadership traits such as their people skills—perhaps they are strong communicators and are able to build trust and relationships.

But the one thing that all good leaders—supervisor, manager or executive—embrace is the understanding and initiative to learn, grow and change; to develop their knowledge skills and ability.

So, what do you do about it? Here are a few simple steps you can take:

Step 1: Become more self-aware by asking people around you (employees if you’re a supervisor/leader): “How can I improve as a leader?”

Step 2: Determine what you want to improve, study up on best practices and start practicing.

Step 3: Check back from time-to-time with the people you ask about improving and ask them, have they noticed any change. Repeat 2 and 3.

Want to learn more about your own leadership traits through self-awareness? The Humadyn Leadership Symposium is built for supervisors, managers and [emerging] leaders seeking to enhance their leadership skills. Early bird pricing ENDS on October 7th - purchase your ticket here https://humadyn.wixsite.com/leadershipsymposium