Leadership Skills and Leadership Qualities

Leadership qualities matter in business, in education. Yet the doctoral student can't find information on leadership skills. If the discipline isn't leadership she has to cry for help: What're leadership qualities?! Others would like to know too what are the personal qualities of leadership! Business leadership is important. Educational leadership is in demand. But, what are leadership skills, qualities?

Reason for Leadership

Interest they have in business or educational leadership. Perhaps also leadership qualities. Knowledge of what is leadership, not. If they see a worker a few times resting who routinely unloads, sorts, stacks, rests, repeats, he is lazy. That's not good leadership! If leadership qualities or skills are lacking it causes annoyance, loss of production.

Need for Leadership

Leadership in education or business are acquirable skills.

In Britain there is confusion on what is leadership. The Department of Employment has publications on how to train, e.g., supervisors. Yet even supervision are known to have been deemed by the Training & Enterprise Councils to be an inherent quality, by the Employment Tribunals with members from the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry not an acquirable skill. In the USA the position is not dissimilar.

Leadership qualities aren’t the same as leadership skills.

There are exceptional 'born leaders', extraordinary circumstances calling for inherent leadership qualities for exceptional motivation with no apparent incentives. But routine administration, business leadership or educational leadership demand only professional acquirable skills.

Leadership qualities are different than leadership skills.

Popularity in Leadership

Approaches to administrative leadership differ. Business leadership strategies vary. Educational leadership policies change. So do leadership skills. The value of leadership qualities never change.

Leadership is about people. Good leadership is popularity based. A French emperor called his soldiers his children, after a defeat again raised volunteer armies. A popular Scottish preacher got nominated for the US senate.

Leadership qualities are inherent. But leadership skills often suffice. Both involve popularly interesting people.

Popularity aids leadership qualities. It helps leadership skills. So in business or educational leadership.

What is Leadership?

Charisma alone it isn't. Nor is it love, care, perseverance that enables popularity in successful leadership. It is also an interest in understanding the human nature, knowing what motivates. That is the basis of leadership.

A car plant boss praises the night shift's work, the day shift competes for equal pride, production increases.

A congressional medal, the offer to be Education Secretary, a biographical movie for a Chicago school teacher who enabled exam. success for eleven pupils was because she could get from them what an education authorities' educational leadership skills couldn't.

Personal Qualities of Leadership

Depending on approaches, business and educational leadership classifications vary. Basically all leadership are of two kinds: leadership and exceptional leadership.

The former is leaderships skills; acquired, ordinarily, routinely at work: e.g., leadership in education, business.

The latter is based on inherent leadership qualities. It enables exceptional motivation with incentives hardly perceptible in extreme inappetence. It is the most rare extraordinary leadership, enhanced by the most exceptional leader's charisma, communication ability, wit, trustworthiness, with much philosophical, sociological, psychological insight, high logical reasoning ability, the vision, heroic courage, love, care, dedication, passion of rational sensible idealism, sacrifice in time, effort. This 'moves mountains'; be it leadership in education, culture, religion, politics, business, it reforms: socially and historically visibly, lastingly, memorably changes established culture, life styles, society.

Exceptional leadership, business or educational or other -in one field or more, of historical noteworthiness demands personal qualities, for it begins with popularity that is not coerced but is by virtue of, irrespective of wealth or position, at personal level earned and deserved trust and faith in the genuineness, sincerity of one's intentions -honesty in intention.

Professional Leadership

What is routinely at work is skills based leadership. Mostly it is leadership in education or in business, of the kind that acquirable skills are adequate for. It does not demand any exceptional leadership qualities. Acquirable are interested behavior and competence. Proportionately to one's degree of interest, basic leadership skills often suffice to function as a professional leader, to lead in one's field.

On professional leadership many have written. There are commonly agreed basic modern leadership principles generally adequate in any field of average competence.

Effective Leadership

Leaders with leadership qualities or skills know this: The average employee does like to be so directed as presumes that he generally wishes to avoid responsibility with relatively little or no ambition and dislikes work except to the extent essential for survival with basic security. People have an inherent need in an adult way to exercise their understanding, capacities, skills motivated by incentives also non-economic and culturally varying. This appreciation is a must for effective leadership.

Leadership Values

Trustworthiness is one of the personal qualities of leadership that can never be imitated in professional leadership for truly great achievement. But the skilful appearance of trustworthiness succeeds. Usually the only task of professional leadership is obtaining the co-operation of colleagues and employees.

This is best done, by making the organization's objects or visions pursued or desired of personal significance to people. That must be based on their values and expectations to generate their energy and enthusiasm. Good leadership on that basis can prepare people for the various controllable and uncontrollable changes, appreciating that leadership attitudes matter above all and must be 'trust' based... In the 1990s' England an industrial strike over pay continued after Railtrak agreed: the workers had discovered that the government had secretly sought to influence the negotiations.

Leadership Strategies

Trust is the most useful of leadership values. Good leaders' people feel valued. Job satisfaction enhances performance and productivity and job satisfaction includes feeling valued. This leadership strategy avoids dissatisfaction, increases job satisfaction. Co-operation is based on others feeling valued enough to be trusted.

Information works at two levels: it shows trust and contributes to the leader's objective others' valid views.

The value of others valid views which free flow of information (or the successful [but risky] appearance of it) enables is not overlooked in good leadership. In, e.g., educational leadership staff's familiarity with consumer culture, in business leadership workers' consumer choices reduce the risk of missing the wood for the trees.

In leadership strategies learning from experience by trial & error is unaffordable in the short term. The complexities of long term results necessitate cultured thought.

Leadership Qualities

In leadership it is generally agreed that personal leadership qualities mater. Success in leadership depends also on the degree of the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the needs and the expectations of those who are to be led, and of how the group is structured -especially as to the relevant situation immediately confronting them in their environment.

What exactly are the personal qualities of exceptional leaders, in leadership of historical noteworthiness, have not been able the psychologists to ascertain in terms of specific character or personality traits. But professional leadership also is people based and it often suffices to 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'

Leadership Skills

Personal qualities of leadership enhance professional skills. But in no field are called for exceptional personal leadership qualities or even professional skills routinely. In ordinary, e.g., business or educational leadership to envision and enable, to empower and energise routinely basic leadership skills suffice. These comprise simply of the knowledge of, and an honest intention to also cater for, the expectations of those to be lead, any problems faced in terms of their means, abilities, social influences.

In ordinary routine leadership, subject to average competence in one's field, nothing is basically essential other than this leadership appreciation and reasonable honesty -i.e., simply treating people as people.

 

Empower Your Staff Through Leadership Training

"Empowerment" is a key word whenever you go to any human resources conference these days. However, it takes more than bandying about the word to empower your staff. The essence of empowering your staff is to provide a facilitative style of leadership that enables you build up and encourage individual staff members to reach their full potential. This leads to many benefits for the company including higher staff morale, increased productivity, reduction in leave, and reduction in staff turnover.

Your role, as a leader in this process, is to ensure your team has:

A clear understanding of their boundaries
Access to the information required to make confident decisions
The ability and skills needed to work in smaller, self-managed teams

As part of this strategy leadership training can be the key to empower individuals and team members to tap into their full potential.

Personal Empowerment

When you send an individual to a good leadership training course, you provide that person with the opportunity to learn personal development skills. Since good leaders must understand the intricacies of interpersonal communication and learn how to motivate team members, the leadership training course will enable individuals to learn a range of skills that will allow them to better communicate on a number of different levels.

An individual attending a leadership training course will learn what their own personal motivation for working is and will learn how to self-motivate to achieve their goals. These communication skills and increased motivation are useful to individuals in whatever role they have within the organization. Individuals who undertake leadership training become more self-aware, empowering the individual to put those new communication skills into practice on the return to the workplace.

Building Team Skills

One of the ‘hidden' benefits of sending an individual staff member to a leadership training course is the difference it can make to team communication practices. Leaders learn how to appreciate other people's contributions to team projects and how to encourage individuals to give their best performance to each task.

Even if an individual does not take on a leadership role within the team, the training will open his or her eyes to the contributions of others within the team. This understanding can encourage greater team harmony and the willingness to work together to achieve the goals of the organization.

Team Empowerment

When you send several team members to a leadership training course, you will find that the entire team becomes empowered. Increased skills in working together are derived through such things as:

The leadership skills of appreciating another's contributions
Enhanced interpersonal communication skills
The ability to motivate others to achieve

The entire team or department can benefit from the increased understanding and reduction in miscommunication that arises when people learn interpersonal communication skills through leadership training. If you want to empower your team to move past a "storming" phase and get into productive work faster, you need several people on the team with a range of skills that will build up and encourage the team to succeed as a unit.

Leadership Empowerment

Finally, sending your team members to leadership training can have many benefits for you as a manager. If you have people who have some leadership skills working with you, it is easier to delegate tasks and share the burdens. You may not need to facilitate as many team sessions, or could find that the team is able to work productively without your continual input, as the team members become empowered to take on a range of leadership tasks themselves.

As a manager, you have many roles within the organization and delegating some of the tasks involved in leading a department can ensure you have time to attend to other important tasks too.

Leadership training empowers individuals, benefits the team, and provides easier delegation for leaders and managers. Everyone in the department wins when individuals become empowered through leadership training.

Source Timothy Millett