We hear that leadership skills are necessary to progress in our careers: to get promoted, to lead a team, and maybe to head up the whole finance function. Developing leadership skills is for more than just C-suite professionals. You can hone this skill at any point in your career. Also, regardless of your role—mid-level accountant, finance professional, or even a different profession altogether—developing leadership skills will help you move forward in your career.
But it’s not always clear what we mean by leadership, let alone how to develop skills in this area. So let’s start by defining what we mean before looking at how we can build out the relevant skills and experience.
What are Leadership Skills?
Leadership skills refer to abilities and qualities that allow someone to guide, influence, and inspire a group towards achieving common goals. These skills can help us to manage, motivate, and develop teams on one hand, while also navigating challenges and making strategic decisions.
Essential Leadership Skills You Should Master
Essential leadership skills for professionals seeking to progress in their careers include:
- Communication: clearly articulating vision, goals, and feedback while being open to listening.
- Emotional intelligence: understanding and managing your own emotions, as well as recognising and responding to others’ feelings.
- Decision-making: making sound, timely choices, often under pressure.
- Delegation: Assigning the right tasks to the right people and trusting them to complete them.
- Problem-solving: finding solutions to challenges, whether operational or interpersonal.
- Strategic thinking: planning for the future, considering long-term goals, risks, and opportunities.
- Adaptability: being flexible and adjusting to change effectively.
- Influence: persuading others to support ideas, initiatives, or change.
- Accountability: taking responsibility for both successes and failures.
- Empowerment: supporting and developing others’ potential, enabling them to succeed.
When combined, these skills can support professionals in building trust with others, preserving a happy and effective workplace, and motivating their team members to meet objectives.
A Guide To Leadership Skills Development
The great news is that we are talking about skills i.e. things that we can learn and can get better at with intention and practice. That doesn’t mean we have to do all of them at once, but we can pick and choose the ones that are the most relevant or useful for us to start with. The concept of self-leadership is also an important one to get our heads around. Whether you are in an official leadership or managerial position, you can flex your leadership muscles: you can start by leading yourself. Self-leadership is about being able to influence and direct your own thoughts and actions to successfully reach your goals.
Leading by example—doing the right thing at all times is also a great leadership attribute. In terms of leading others, being able to set a direction and articulate it to others so that they’ll want to follow can also be practiced regardless of role learning from others “If I have seen further, it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants,” said Sir Isaac Newton.
The first piece of great news is that we experience others’ leadership skills all the time. Admittedly, sometimes leadership is great and may feel truly inspired and connected, but this isn’t always the case, and sadly, many leaders get it wrong.
The second great piece of news is that we get to learn from this! We can take all of the magnificent traits and try to emulate them while letting go of the rest. Like many things, leadership will take practice, but we can identify and hone the most important elements to us and start making a difference today! We can also learn as much from the leaders who don’t always get things right.
Keep in mind that being a leader is a process rather than a final goal. You can develop into an inspiring leader by practicing often. Check out our Essential Skills Courses if you’re ready to develop your leadership skills. Our courses are intended to give you the information and useful skills you need to be a successful leader.
