5 Skills Leaders Need To Develop

Anyone can be placed in a leadership role. In most organizations, the reward for being an outstanding individual contributor is to be promoted into leading a team of other individual contributors. But those leaders often find that the skills that made them great employees aren’t as helpful when leading great employees (or even mediocre ones). As Marshall Goldsmith famously says, "what got you here, won’t get you there."
Being successful as a leader requires developing a certain set of new skills. These skills that may or may not have been a part of any "leadership training" program you’ve attended. In this article, we'll review five skills leaders need to develop in order to be successful-and five skills aspiring leaders should make a point to develop before stepping into their first leadership role.
0:00 Introduction
1:02 Relationship Building
2:18 Creative Thinking
4:10 Active Listening
5:32 Critical Thinking
6:56 Meaning Making
8:15 Conclusion
It’s rare that leaders arrive in their first role with these skills. They take time to develop. And that means great leaders don't stop developing these skills after a certain level in the organization or years of experience. Great leaders are always learning and always developing. What got them into leadership may not get them any further. But, developing these skills will. And these skills will build teams that are better equipped to do their best work ever.
//DO YOUR BEST WORK EVER
If you liked this video and you want to help your team do their best work ever, check out the free resources we've compiled at davidburkus.com/resources
//ABOUT DAVID
One of the world’s leading business thinkers, David Burkus’ forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever.
He is the best-selling author of four books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, USAToday, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning. Since 2017, Burkus has been ranked as one of the world’s top business thought leaders by Thinkers50. As a sought-after international speaker, his TED Talk has been viewed over 2 million times. He’s worked with leaders from organizations across all industries including Google, Stryker, Fidelity, Viacom, and even the US Naval Academy.
A former business school professor, Burkus holds a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University.
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//MUSIC
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[@user-fj6of2ep8o]

We need this to a be a framework for all our leaders at our company... Too many egos and on their high horse to do this though... What can we do...

[@DavidBurkus]

Anonymously send them this video? Kidding...sort of.
In all honesty, you can't do much to change someone until they're ready. But you can lead by example and work on yourself and hope others notice.

[@seanbain1956]

Great strategic skills

[@DavidBurkus]

Thanks so much Sean!

[@SwolHumanist]

These skills are okay, but the number one thing the leader should have is knowledge of what they are leading. The restaurant manager needs to know everything about running the restaurant or he/she will quickly lose credibility.

[@DavidBurkus]

That's a good point. But we were kind of assuming knowledge of the industry as a prerequisite.

[@nathanclark484]

And therein lies the rub, too many people are placed in leadership positions without putting more rigor into vetting their baseline industry knowledge. ​@DavidBurkus

[@brianwheeler704]

I disagree. I don't need to know EVERYTHING about the jobs of the people I'm leading. I need good people who know the processes. I just need to know how to lead the team in the direction they need to go in. Feeling like one has to know everything leads to micromanagement. I trust the people I lead to make decisions. My job is to instill trust and guidance to make sure the train stays on the tracks.

[@SwolHumanist]

@@brianwheeler704 This is the problem with the workplace. Someone that is not important in the function of the business is paid the most. We need less people in the workplace reading spreadsheets. This way the workers will get paid more and there will be more profit.