If you want to be a leadership theory wonk, be a professor. If you want to lead, develop the skills. Sure, you may have been blessed with a personality that has certain leadership traits, but the vast majority of us will conclude that leaders are made by their own effort.

Check out 8 different lists of leadership skill sets to find out what the experts’ studies say you need to lead.

Click here to subscribe to an eMail CRASH COURSE on the steps involved in MAPPING SKILLS

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Feel the Future is Uncertain? Want to Nail Down a Path Through the Fog of Confusion?

The world changed in December of 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT. Whether you like it or not, businesses are employing AI in every industry and just about all jobs performed by those who went to college. 

Hundreds of millions of employees will find the way they do their work drastically changed. The same goes for entrepreneurs and business owners. 

There is a way to map a course into the future — it’s called SKILL MAPPING.

TAKE ACTION: Get Started by taking  a Crash Course Or by Developing Your Vision.

“A competitive world has two possibilities for you. You can lose. Or, if you want to win, you can change.”  — Lester Thoreau, Dean, Sloan School of Management, M.I.T., 60 Minutes, February 7, 1988 

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Craft Your Vision: Get Future Ready

IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO NOT KNOW WHAT SKILLS YOU NEED TO DEVELOP to have a successful career. 

Don’t be a bit player. Get future ready and map our the roles you need to play on the stage of business. 

A SHORT COURSE is a self-contained, low cost, self-paced, online class available to you 24/7. It contains all the content you need, the work sheets to fill out, exercise to compete. Plus you also get email support. 

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Want Quicker Results?

Accelerate Your Learning with weekly conversations, advice, support and feedback by having your own COACH.

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In the 21st Century, Should I Still Develop Leadership Skills?

Well, no if you want to work with machines all day. Or if you want to follow orders from the boss — the authority figure — who is less competent than you. But if you want to get things done through people, better go for it.

Adapting to change requires leaders to show others the way. You might say, that many people have a fundamental need to follow.

Elements of leadership in the 21st Century are likely to be different. For example, how one influences and how one is influenced when conversational AI’s are present to provide advice (in front of your staff no less) will be something. And new organizations are moving out of the hierarchical, bureaucratic structure into the use of networks of expert.

BUT

Leadership is timeless, what works in the 21st Century, worked in the 20th. 

There are a number of different skills sets needed to lead. You will find some of the major ones listed on this page.

What Are Two Most Important Leadership Skills To Develop?

You will see short leadership skill lists and long lists of leadership skillsother experts say you must develop. However, boiling it down to two we have motivation and persuasion. But each of these component skills (I hate to say it), can require years of study and practice to master.

1. Leaders Require Persuasive Skills

Persuasion is the use of language to change thinking, attitudes, and sometimes even values. All great leaders persuade and have learned how to persuade. Often we are more persuasive than we think. I often have students do an exercise called the “persuasive pitch.” They pick a friend and engage in a persuasive conversation, one that causes a change in thinking. The simple construct a persuasive appeal using a set of statements that appeal to logic, emotion, or motivation. Most of the time, they succeed.

But persuasion is a complex skill consisting of other skills. You may want to consult:

• The 6 Critical Interpersonal Communication Skills. People skills matter. The leading cause of failure of new front-line supervisors is their human relations and communication skills. You might say they get promoted due to their technical skills, demoted since they lack leadership ones.

• 6 Communication Skills Needed to Lead. Find out more about verbal skills focused on contexts like small groups and larger organizations.

“For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” — Pareto’s Principle. Sometimes known as the Law of the Vital Few.

Everyone has their favorite list of leadership skills. As one can see from the lists of skills in these studies, success in organizations actually consists of a small number of skills. While every study mentions a little bit different list, there are certain patterns. Can you pick them out?

2. Leadership Requires The Ability to Motivate

Motivation skills differ from persuasion in a very subtle way — the focus is on behavior, not thinking. Many who study psychology believe that behavior is easier to change than most attitudes or beliefs. In fact, many theories describe why even words can change behavior. On the behavioral side, there are three: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and vicarious learning or modeling. 

This brings us to what one can do to develop into a great leader. To do that, one can read, and read, and read. This can turn you into a leadership scholar. But to do something in the real world, you will need to test your leadership ability in different situations.

• Motivational Essentials. You can’t lead if you can’t motivate. The page lists six key theories to unlocking the secrets of motivation.

What Skills and Skill Sets Are Associated With Leadership?

In the 21st Century, leadership skills are will still be in demand. The leadership skills needed to influence others will work now and in the future.

Leadership, though, is a completely different set of skills than what’s needed for the role of manager.  For example, leaders focus on the relationship more than the task and can transform groups into teams. Leadership has an essential focus on people and how to influence them. Leadership requires “soft skills”, more than just four or five. 

To be a leader, one needs an exclusive set of human relations and interpersonal skills. These include skills such as:

• Vision
• Motivation
• Persuasion
• Inspiration
• Communication, and
• Teams evolution.

And activities such as:

• Counseling, 
• Coaching,
• Teaching, and
• Mentoring.

Some are fairly easy to develop — others take a long time to perfect. For example, learning charisma takes a really long time. As you can see from the skills list and the eight lists below, there are certain leadership skills to develop in the 21st Century.

The Skill Sets of Effective Leaders — What the Research Says

Leader Skills List 8

Quinn, Robert; Faeman, Sue; Thompson, Michael; McGrath, Michael; St. Clair, Lynda; (2011). Becoming a Master Manager. John Wiley. 

This is more of a comprehensive list of both leadership skills and management competencies.

• Understanding Self and Others
• Communicating Honestly and Effectively
• Mentoring and Developing Others
• Managing Groups and Leading Teams
• Managing and Encouraging Constructive Conflict
• Organizing Information Flows
• Working and Managing Across Functions
• Planning and Coordinating Projects
• Measuring and Monitoring Performance and Quality
• Encouraging and Enabling Compliance
• Developing and Communicating a Vision
• Setting Goals and Objectives
• Motivating Self and Others
• Designing and Organizing
• Managing Execution and Driving for Result
• Using Power Ethically and Effectively
• Championing and Selling New Ideas
• Fueling and Fostering Innovation
• Negotiating Agreement and Commitment
• Implementing and Sustaining Change

List 9: Desired Leadership Skills Sets in Managers

Whetten & Cameron (2011) in their book Developing Management Skills choose eleven skills to focus on. While the others called this management skills (they are management professors), in reality they are more properly categorized as leadership skills. The list includes:

· Interpersonal Skills (Developing Self-Awareness & Creativity)

· Interpersonal Skills (Power, Motivation, Conflict)

· Group Skills (Delegating and Teamwork)

· Communication Skills (Presentations, Conducting Meetings, Interviews)

Notice that the first two relate to self-development & self-mastery, areas typically not included in lists of leadership skills or management ones for that matter. 

Leader Skills List 8: 

Quinn, Robert; Faeman, Sue; Thompson, Michael; McGrath, Michael; St. Clair, Lynda; (2011). Becoming a Master Manager. John Wiley. 

This is more of a comprehensive list of both leadership skills and management competencies.

• Understanding Self and Others
• Communicating Honestly and Effectively
• Mentoring and Developing Others
• Managing Groups and Leading Teams
• Managing and Encouraging Constructive Conflict
• Organizing Information Flows
• Working and Managing Across Functions
• Planning and Coordinating Projects
• Measuring and Monitoring Performance and Quality
• Encouraging and Enabling Compliance
• Developing and Communicating a Vision
• Setting Goals and Objectives
• Motivating Self and Others
• Designing and Organizing
• Managing Execution and Driving for Result
• Using Power Ethically and Effectively
• Championing and Selling New Ideas
• Fueling and Fostering Innovation
• Negotiating Agreement and Commitment
• Implementing and Sustaining Change

List 9: Desired Leadership Skills Sets in Managers

Whetten & Cameron (2011) in their book Developing Management Skills choose eleven skills to focus on. While the others called this management skills (they are management professors), in reality they are more properly categorized as leadership skills. The list includes:

· Interpersonal Skills (Developing Self-Awareness & Creativity)

· Interpersonal Skills (Power, Motivation, Conflict)

· Group Skills (Delegating and Teamwork)

· Communication Skills (Presentations, Conducting Meetings, Interviews)

Notice that the first two relate to self-development & self-mastery, areas typically not included in lists of leadership skills or management ones for that matter. 

Summary

As one can tell, there is no agreement on what is the most important but there are patterns. For example, in almost every list there is communication and motivation. Fortunately, if you devote time and money to leadership skills development, you will not have that much competition.

“Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.” — Henry Mintzberg, McGill University School of Management, The Nature of Managerial Work, Harper & Row, 1973

Sound Motivation Theories. If you can’t motivate, you cannot lead. Discover some of the best theories psychology has to offer.

12 Verbal Leadership Communications Skills. These make all the difference in today’s world. 

Hubpages (2012). Twenty Key Leadership Skills. This is a good list. All focused on leadership.

Final Words

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When we are successful at something, we chalk it up to skill. But, when we screw up, we’ll say it’s just bad luck. But Michael Mauboussin writes that skill and luck are intertwined.

• Talent Is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin.
• The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Genius in All of Us by David Schenk.
• Bounce by Mathew Syed

On Site Resources

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Related Pages

References

Business Matters (2018). How to Development Your Leadership Skills. 

Chodkowski, Matthew and Schindle, Terry (2018). Leadership in The 21st Century – The Postindustrial Paradigm, Inside Indiana Business, July 15.

Elkinberry, Kevin (2007). Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time, Jossey-Bass.

Dilts, Robert (1996.) Visionary Leadership Skills: Creating a World to Which People Want to Belong. Metapublications

Drew Hanson (2011). Why MBA Programs Don’t Produce Leaders, Forbes.

Harvard Business Review Articles on Leadership 

Kotter, Phillip (2013). Management is Still Not Leadership.Harvard Business Review Blog Network, January 9.

Mahoney, Janet (2008). Leadership Skills For the 21st Century. Journey of Nursing Management, Volume 9: 269-271

Morrison, Emily (1994). Leadership Skills. Developing Volunteers for Organizational Success. Da Capo Press.

Owen, Jo (2007). The Leadership Skills Handbook: 50 Skills From 1000 Leaders. Kogan Page.

Hamm, John (2011). Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership. Jossey-Bass.