Nearly everyone, at a certain point of time in their career, must decide if they want to go ahead with a leadership role. However, many people focus on the wrong factors. Yes, leadership positions come with additional perks, pay bumps, and more esteemed titles. However, to be a successful leader, you should be honest with yourself. Are you confident that you have the leadership skills? Here are a few ways to identify your leadership skills.
Moving into a managerial or any other kind of leadership role is a huge responsibility. It impacts more than just your career. It could either greatly enhance or hurt your whole company in some or the other way. For example, a report showed that the employees who have ineffective managers are four times more likely to be interviewing for other jobs actively.
The option is also complicated by the fact that a leadership role will, without any doubt, be different from other positions. The important skills are not likely the strengths that you have been using regularly. The position could even reveal the weaknesses, so, if you are not ready, the change can be jarring for your career.
Before you jump at the promotion, you must ask yourself the below-mentioned questions to see if it’s time to take the next step to become a leader.
Ways to identify your leadership skills
Do you know how your responsibilities will change?
Whether you are considering taking a leadership role within your existing company or looking somewhere else, your daily responsibilities will be quite different. Understanding that your responsibilities will change is one of the significant ways to identify your leadership skills. And possibly not in those ways what you expect. Most often, leaders and managers must choose administrative tasks that could result in doing what you like less.
For instance, imagine you are a teacher who wants to become the head of the department. So, in this case, you will have to attend more meetings, oversee other teachers etc. You might not have enough time to spend with your students after school. If you are among those for whom interacting with kids is the most important thing, then choosing a leadership role will leave you disappointed.
First, make a list of things you enjoy in your job. Do not just consider your roles and responsibilities. Also, think about other factors also like for whom you work and the number of working hours every day. Then, cross off anything on that list that would not be a part of your responsibility anymore. If you are not happy professionally, it is not the right time to take the next step.
Do you have an idea about what you lack in your knowledge?
Professional development is difficult. Employees get training for different reasons. Sometimes their organization requires workers with new talents. Other times, the managers see potential in an employee and provide them with an opportunity. You can also complete the training and courses at your own pace.
Looking back at all the career learning, you must know which leadership skills are covered and which you need to improve. This takes too much self-awareness. But knowing where there are gaps in your knowledge permits you to enter a leadership role with an open eye. You can take the initiative to learn important skills.
How do you appreciate others?
Once you have answers to the above, conduct a thought experience. Think of certain difficult situations that you have experienced in your career. These can be times when you missed the deadline or when two of your colleagues did not agree to your point. Then, re-collect these events through a leader’s perspective.
You should not just consider what you would say or do, you should also consider how others would react or what changes would take place. If you are confident that you can handle these situations, then you have leadership qualities.
Understand your personality traits
One of the important ways to identify your leadership skills is to assess your personality. Assess the dominant characteristics of your unique personality and pay close attention to how they arise in work, family, or friendship environment. Think about the attributes friends and colleagues often ascribe to you. Assessing the nature of your character in these settings is important to understand how you will lead your team. This is so because our behavioral traits always play an important role in how we make our decisions, intermingle with others, and handle stress.
Take enough time to ask yourself what usually drives your choices. Think about how often factors like impulsiveness, determination, and patience shape how you act and find different resolutions. Answering these queries will give you a better understanding of your leadership though processes and habits.
Identify all your weaknesses
Leading by your strengths is not as effective as you might think. To be a true leader, you must understand your authenticity and competence. Being clear about the shortcomings you hope to overcome can help to inspire your team to enhance themselves as well.
Ask for feedback
You can attend as many leadership personality quizzes as you like, but you will not gain a whole understanding of the kind of leader you are without feedback from those you lead. Getting opinions from your colleague about your leadership style will give you useful information into behaviors you might have never chosen otherwise. Whether you collect these perspectives from a survey box at the office or by meeting with your co-workers, asking your team to give your feedback regarding leadership skills will provide you an improved comprehension of your strengths, personality traits, perceived values, and weaknesses.
In addition, creating a culture of feedback among your colleagues can help you to improve how you address and communicate with your team. One of the best ways to steer your firm is with the full idea of how you can meet the needs of those who are around you.
Look forward to your leaders
Most people’s personalities are influenced by those who hold influence over them. Initially, these people are our teachers and parents; ultimately, they are leaders like our managers and bosses. Whether we understand it or not, the characteristics of these influencers impact how we make choices, behave under immense pressure, and address the issues. As you try to find out what kind of leader you are, take some time to think about the leaders in your life who have the same qualities as you.
Attaining a sense of how you have applied these properties to your approach as a leader will assist you to know the ways in which you affect your company’s culture.
Motivation and communication
Active leaders must master all types of communication including verbal, listening, and written skills. As a manager, you are the point of communication between senior management and frontline staff. You will interact with different people, ranging from entry-level employees to CEOs and heads of departments, in different ways- through social media and email, over the phone, presentations, one-to-ones, and meetings.
You must establish a trusting relationship with your employees so that they feel comfortable in sharing info with you, and the other way around. To make sure that the lines of communication are open, you must make yourself available and accessible to your employees to discuss any concerns or issues that arise from. Having an open policy or monthly or weekly team meetings must facilitate this. Let your employees know that they matter. How can you do that? By maintaining eye contact, listening to them attentively, and smiling.