How Good Are Your Leadership Skills?

Mind Tools Newsletter 128 – June 2nd, 2009 To receive newsletters like this straight to your inbox every two weeks, simply sign up using the form in the right-hand column, or click here.

Contents: In This Issue Leadership Month Offer How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? A Final Note

Welcome to our June 2nd Newsletter!

As a regular visitor to Mind Tools you'll know that we firmly believe that leaders are nurtured and not born. With study and effort, anyone can become an effective leader - that's why we pride ourselves on helping you to become the best leader you can be.

In This Issue

In today's newsletter, we bring you two great ways to develop your leadership skills - our new leadership self-test helps you answer the question "How Good Are Your Leadership Skills?", and our Leadership Month Offer helps you make the very best of your leadership skills, with particular emphasis on the all-important skill of motivating other people.

Read on, and take the self-test here in full in this newsletter, right after news of our Leadership Month Offer!

Leadership Month Offer

In the Mind Tools members' community, the Career Excellence Club, we welcome thousands of like-minded members every month. Members learn a wide range of leadership and personal effectiveness skills, and benefit from access to the Club's extensive resources and the support of the Mind Tools team.

June is Leadership Month in the Club! On joining, new members not only receive Mind Tools' in-depth leadership program "How To Lead", but also our "Team Motivation Workbook", uncovering the all-important, practical skills you need to get the best from other people. What's more, you get a month of focused leadership training within the Club, and plus support and help in developing your own leadership skills.

So why not make June the month to develop YOUR leadership skills further, and join us in the Club? It's only US$1 for the first month, and you can cancel whenever you want to. Click here, find out more, and boost your own leadership skills!

Best wishes, and have a wonderful June!

James & Rachel

James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson
MindTools.com
Mind Tools – Essential skills for an excellent career!

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Editor's Choice Article:

How Good Are Your Leadership Skills?

Who do you consider to be a good leader? Maybe it's a politician, a famous businessperson, or a religious figure. Or maybe it's someone you know personally – like your boss, a teacher, or a friend.

You can find people in leadership roles almost everywhere you look. However, simply having the responsibilities of a leader doesn't necessarily make a person an effective leader. Leadership itself is a privilege and a skill. And it's skill that those of us who lead need to develop continuously.

So, how can you bring your leadership skills to tip-top condition?

You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. Complete the quiz below to help you identify where you already lead effectively, and where your skills need further development. In the analysis section underneath, we'll direct you to the resources you need for exceptional leadership.

To lead effectively, you've got to want to be a leader. Take our Leadership Motivation Assessment to find out how motivated you are to accept the challenges of leadership.

How Good Are Your Leadership Skills?

Instructions:

© Mind Tools Ltd, 1995-2009.

Statement		Not at all	Rarely	Some times	Often	Very Often
1	When assigning tasks, I consider people’s skills and interests.
2	I doubt myself and my ability to succeed.
3	I expect nothing less than top-notch results from people.
4	What I expect from others is different from what I expect from myself.
5	When someone is upset, I try to understand how he or she is feeling.
6	I can struggle to know what to do when situations change.
7	I think that personal feelings shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of performance and productivity.
8	I am highly motivated because I know I have what it takes to be successful.
9	Time spent worrying about team morale is time that’s wasted.
10	I get upset and worried quite often in the workplace.
11	My actions show people what I want from them.
12	When working with a team, I encourage everyone to work toward the same goal.
13	I make exceptions to my rules and expectations - it’s easier than being the enforcer all the time!
14	I enjoy planning for the future.
15	I feel threatened when someone criticizes me.
16	I take time to learn what people need from me so they can be successful.
17	I’m optimistic about life, and I can see beyond temporary setbacks and problems.
18	I think that teams perform best when individuals keep doing the same tasks and perfecting them, instead of learning new skills and challenging themselves.
	Total of weighted scores (see instructions):

Score Interpretation

Score	Comment
18-34	Your leadership skills are in the beginning stages. This is a great time to start developing your competency in these areas. If you use more of these skills at work, at home, and in the community, you'll be a better asset to your work team. You can do it - and now is the time to start!
35-52	You're doing OK as a leader, but you have the potential to do much more. While you've built the foundation of effective leadership, this is your opportunity to improve your skills, and be the best you can be. Examine the areas where you lost points, and determine what you can do to develop those specific skills.
53-90	Excellent! You're well on your way to becoming a great leader. But you can never be too good at leadership or too experienced - so look at the areas where you didn't score maximum points, and figure out what you can do to improve your performance.

There are many leadership skills and competencies that, when combined and applied, go toward making you an effective leader. You have the ability to develop each of these skills within yourself.

As you answered the questions, you probably had some ideas about what are, and are not, effective leadership qualities. Simply being aware of these can often lead to improved performance. However, read on for specific ideas of how to improve your leadership skills.

Personal Characteristics

Successful leaders tend to have certain traits. Two keys areas of personal growth and development are fundamental to leadership success: (1) self-confidence, and (2) a positive attitude and outlook. Self-confident people are usually inspiring, and people like to be around individuals who believe in themselves and what they're doing. Likewise, if you're a positive and optimistic person who tries to make the best of any situation, you'll be far more likely to motivate people to do their best.

• Self-Confidence (Questions 2, 8)
  
  
  
  Self-confidence is built by mastering key skills and situations, and by recognizing that you can add value to the work you do. One of the best ways to improve your confidence is to become aware of all the great things you've already achieved. Too often, we ignore our successes, and focus on our failures. By looking at what we do well, we can learn to value our contributions and realize how effective we already are.
  
  Our article on Building Self-Confidence offers things you can do to better understand yourself and build self-confidence. From there, you'll begin to make the most of your strengths and improve your weaknesses. And for more ideas on how to become more self-assured, take our quiz How Self-Confident Are You?
  
  
• Positive Attitude and Outlook (Questions 10, 17)
  
  
  
  A positive mindset is also associated with strong leadership. However, being positive is much more than presenting a happy face to the world. You need to develop a strong sense of balance, and recognize that setbacks and problems happen - it's how you deal with those problems that makes the difference.
  
  Positive people approach situations realistically, prepared to make the necessary changes to overcome a problem. Negative people, on the other hand, often give in to the stress and pressure of the situation. This can lead to fear, worry, distress, anger and failure.
  
  Also, negative people are more likely to blame external factors that are beyond their control. Positive people tend to adopt an 'internal locus of control', and this allows them to believe they have the power needed to make things better. To explore this further, take our locus of control self-assessment quiz.
  
  Stress management techniques, including relaxation exercises and physical exercise, are great for getting rid of negative thoughts and feelings. Understanding your thinking patterns, and learning to identify and eliminate negative thinking are key. You can learn how to do this in our Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking, and Positive Thinking skill-builder, and you can learn more about how your attitude impacts your whole team in our article, A Leader's Mood.

Emotional Intelligence

(Questions 5, 15)

The concept of emotional intelligence used to be referred to as 'soft skills,' 'character', or even 'communication skills'. The more recent idea of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) offers a more precise understanding of a specific kind of human talent. EQ is the ability to recognize feelings - your own and others' - and manage those emotions to create strong relationships.

To be a successful leader, you must develop the emotional intelligence competencies and abilities that are needed to work well with people. Remember, EQ is much more than just being nice: it's a different type of 'smart' - it allows you to manage yourself, and be socially competent when managing relationships.

Learning to develop empathy is essential for emotional intelligence, as is communicating effectively, and practicing active listening. These all help you really understand the other person's perspective. Anger management is also important, as it helps you manage your own feelings, before they manage you!

The Leadership tab on the Mind Tools Member Home Page has a section on emotional intelligence in leadership.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is a leadership style where leaders create an inspiring vision of the future, motivate their followers to achieve it, manage implementation successfully, and develop the members of their teams to be even more effective in the future. As such, it's often the most appropriate leadership style to use in business.

Transformational leadership has six key dimensions. When combined, these dimensions help you raise your team to higher levels of motivation and understanding. The team can learn to trust, admire, and be loyal to the leader - and they can be encouraged to perform beyond expectations. Here are the six dimensions:

• Providing a Compelling Vision of the Future (Questions 6, 14)
  
  
  
  This is your ability to create a winning vision of the future, and to present this vision in a way that's compelling and inspiring to the people you lead.
  
  The first part of being able to do this is having a thorough knowledge of the area you're operating in. See our article on Building Expert Power to find out how to develop this.
  
  From there, good use of strategic analysis techniques can help you gain the key insights you need into the environment you're operating in, and into the needs of your clients. See the Career Excellence Club strategy menu for more than 50 of these, which give useful insights in different circumstances. With these, you can identify the challenges you face and start to identify the options available to you. Once you've done this, you can use prioritization skills and decision-making techniques to identify the best strategic options and validate your chosen way forward.
  
  Finally, to sell your vision, you need the ability to create a compelling and interesting story. Our article on powers of persuasion can help you open closed minds, so that people consider your ideas fairly. Business storytelling is another great way of inspiring people to follow you.
  
  
• Persuading People to Accept Goals (Questions 9, 12)
  
  
  
  This is closely related to creating and selling a vision. You must be able to convince others to accept the objectives you've set. Emphasize teamwork, and recognize that when people work together, they can achieve great things. To provide effective leadership by linking performance and team goals, use Management by Objectives (MBO) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
  
  Ultimately, goal acceptance is about finding ways to motivate people. To better understand your ability to motivate, complete our quiz How Good Are Your Motivation Skills?
  
  
• Being a Good Role Model (Questions 4, 11)
  
  
  
  Good leaders lead by example. They 'do what they say,' and 'say what they do.' These types of leaders are trustworthy, and show integrity. They get involved in the daily work where needed, and they stay in touch with what's happening throughout the organization. Great leaders don't just sit in their offices and give orders; they demonstrate the actions and values that they expect from the team.
  
  As with building vision above, a key part of being a good role model is leading from the front by developing expert power. A leader can't rely on position alone: by keeping current, and staying relevant within the organization, you'll inspire people because you're worthy of your power and authority, not just because you're the boss.
  
  
• Managing Performance Effectively (Questions 3, 13)
  
  
  
  Effective leaders manage performance by setting their expectations clearly and concisely. When everyone knows what's expected, it's much easier to get high performance. There's little uncertainty, therefore you can deal with performance issues quickly. Use performance agreements to further clarify understanding on both sides.
  
  As you create rules, help the team understand why the rules are there. Involve them in the rule-making process, and make sure your expectations align with the resources and support available. Apply rules fairly and consistently.
  
  
• Providing Support and Stimulation (Questions 1, 7, 16, 18)
  
  
  
  The last two dimensions of transformational leadership require you to commit to developing your people. To be highly motivated at work, people usually need more than a list of tasks to be completed each day. They need challenges and interesting work. They need to develop their skills, and feel supported in their efforts to do a good job.
  
  Think about how you assign and allocate tasks, and look for opportunities to match people with jobs and responsibilities that will help them grow and develop. Where possible, find ways to enrich jobs. Perform training needs assessments on a regular basis to determine what your team needs to be successful. Remember that emotional support is also important. The Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid is a great tool for helping you find the right balance between concern for people and productivity.

Key points:

To be successful in your career, regardless of your title or position, focus on developing your leadership skills.

Effective leaders can add value simply by being present on teams. They are inspirational and motivating. They know the right things to say to people to help them understand what's needed, and they can convince people to support a cause.

When you have talented and effective leaders in your organization, you're well on your way to success. Develop these leadership skills in yourself and in your team members - and watch the performance and productivity of your entire team improve.

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A Final Note from James

I hope you found the leadership self-test insightful!

What it shows is that any one of us can be a highly effective leader, as long as we put in the time and effort needed to learn core leadership skills. Yes, it takes a little effort to learn these skills, however the rewards that come with successful leadership are huge - rewards of respect, self-confidence and happiness, as well as those of money and status.

With that in mind, I'd like to remind you of Leadership Month in Mind Tools' Career Excellence Club!

Week-by-week during June, we’ll focus on how you can develop the qualities of an effective leader; how you can build an inspiring vision of the future; how you can motivate people to deliver that vision; and how you can manage its delivery successfully. With bonus leadership workbooks, articles, reviews, interviews and forum-based discussions, it’s going to be a fascinating, inspiring and life-changing month!

Membership for this month costs just US$1, and you can cancel at any time. Find out more, and join us for leadership month at http://www.mindtools.com/rs/CXC! Go on - it costs so little, and there's so much to gain!

Best wishes, and I look forward to meeting you in the Club!

James

James Manktelow
Click here to email
MindTools.com
Mind Tools – Essential skills for an excellent career!

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