If you want to be a successful leader, you have to have people skills. The most fundamental element of leadership is being able to build trust with others by connecting with them.
Important Attributes That Every Leader Has to Have
It is very unfortunate that more often than not, many people who don’t have a strong personality get promoted into management, even though they are not able to work with others, let alone lead or manage them. That is why it is very important to cultivate leaders that have strong people skills. People who want to become leaders need to be self-aware and motivated at all times, as well as have great social skills. Leaders that have these skills know how to control themselves, they are able to stay motivated, they are emphatic and they have good people skills. Leaders with these characteristics have likability, assuredness and confidence necessary to be successful. Now, here is what you need know about developing these attributes.
Likability
It is natural that we want to like the people that we work for. But, is it necessary? It is absolutely not necessary. However, people make the key difference, therefore we always want to work for nice people.
Successful leaders need to be likable in order to make people simply want to work for them. What makes people work for such leaders is that they know that they have their best interests at heart at all times. This is very important for an organization because it can create a competitive edge for it. For leaders, the thing that makes them likable is their personality. For managers, however, it doesn’t have to be about their personality. Showing concern for people, communicating regularly with them, and simply being professional is what can make them likable.
Assuredness
There is one thing that is very unfortunate when it comes to good managers and that is that they don’t get enough attention. Have you ever worked with someone who is uncertain and tentative? If you have, then you know that it can cause you a lot of trouble and headaches. Whenever deadlines are missed, it is not good for a business and people can get easily frustrated.
As a manager, you need to do your job, thus developing your own assuredness. However, that is not all that you need to do. You also need to encourage others to do their job as well. This is what makes a good manager and it also makes people to simply love working with you.
Confidence
Confidence can be considered as something that is very close to assuredness. You are going to make others feel more comfortable if you are confident that, based on your skills, you can do your job without any problems whatsoever. Leaders are the ones that have to project confidence. That is what other people expect from their leader. It is natural that when we are led by another person, we expect them to be able to do what they say that they are able to do.
A job well done is the key here. It is where the confidence emerges from. However, confidence also emerges from being able to correct mistakes and helping others to learn that ability as well. And while confidence is great, overconfidence is not. Overconfidence can sometimes result in a failure and hubris.
All of these are the qualities that a good leader has to posses. At the end of the day, a trustworthy leader is a good leader. And what is the key attribute of trust? It is the respect. In order to lead, you have to have the ability to develop, understand and support people. Business can be tough sometimes, but a good leader is there to make it easier.
