Reading books on leadership, going to leadership development seminars and catching up on the latest blogs related to becoming a better leader are important steps towards improving leadership capabilities. 

However, simply reading about them or sitting through training isn’t going to improve your skills.  You have to practice.  You can’t simply wait for a learning opportunity to show up.  Great leaders understand they have to practice using and developing the skills to get better.  It doesn’t simply happen by osmosis.

What are the fundamental leadership skills every leader should practice? 

• Shape a vision for your team (or division/organization).  Without a vision, neither you or the team know where to go, what the goals are and can’t participate in helping you get there.

• Communicate the vision into a clear strategy.  Knowing the vision is important, and outlining the strategy in a clear concise way helps the team buy-in and know what actions take.  If you want them to go right you need to tell them, and if there are actions you don’t want them to take they need to know that too.

• Measurable results matter.  Kicking off the strategy without knowing the results you want to achieve, and ensuring the team knows them is a recipe for failure.  Outlining the results and not regularly measuring, adjusting the team and assessing progress won’t get you to where you want to go, in the desired time frame. 

• Recruit, hire, train and develop the best people.  The right people make all the difference in terms of getting results. Nurturing the team, helping them develop the necessary skills, providing ongoing feedback and support is key to the strategy being implemented well. 

• Include succession planning as part of your strategy.  As you are thinking about developing your people, think about who can step into leadership roles in the future.  Your team/division/organization will stagnate if you aren’t developing new leaders.

• Let the creativity flow.  Develop a culture where the team members feel open to sharing ideas and be open to new ideas.  Encourage learning and both personal and professional development. 

• Be the model for others.  What areas of development do you need to focus on?  How’s your health?  Do you get enough sleep and exercise? Are you out of balance in your life?  Do you seek out the help and resources to be your best?  If you want the best from them you have to be at your best.  Model for them the behavior, actions, and ways of being you want from them. 

These aren’t new.  I’m confident you have read and heard about them before.  What matters though is the practicing component.  You have to hone these skills and that requires practice.

Highly successful leaders invest in themselves to become more successful.  They take time every day to apply these skills and often create a plan of how they are going to improve.  Just like they do with their team, they develop metrics so they can measure progress and shift as necessary.

Working with hundreds of executives over the years I have encouraged them to keep a journal.  Daily may be too onerous for many, but I suggest several times a week.  In the journal I want them to record their progress and reflections on what they did well, what they didn’t do well (or what they flat out did wrong) and what they learned.   The information is invaluable as a learning tool both at the moment it is recorded, and as a way to look over a month or a quarter and see what keeps popping up.  Writing the reflections down will enable you to see patterns you might never notice if it stays in your head. 

As you succeed at one level, tackle another.  And keep at it.  A mark of a true leader is one who recognizes they always have something new to learn. 

Next steps:

Are you the leader you want to be?  Do you know what type of leader you are?

Answer these questions and you’ll get an objective idea of your leadership style, regardless of what stage you are in your career.