Are You Looking For The Right Leadership Skills In Your Employees?

are-you-looking-for-the-right-leadership-skills-in-your-employees-

By Carina Biddle

5 MIN read

Every startup wants to get the most out of their employees, and many have people on their teams who have untapped leadership potential, yet it's not always easy to identify who has the leadership skills needed to be effective and who doesn’t. When you're considering who to invest resources in for developing leadership skills, start with employees who demonstrate these qualities:

1. Step out

Most of us think of a leader as someone who shows endless confidence, who speaks with authority, and who has all the answers. However, as the Nobel prize winner in economics, Daniel Kahneman points out in his best selling book, Thinking Fast and Slow,“…declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.” Instead of looking for high displays of confidence, look for someone who despite their misgivings and human fears, is willing to step out, to make a call, and to make a mistake and learn from it. An effective leader is one who, despite their fears, makes a difficult decision, initiates action, and has the ego strength to admit when they’ve failed. Employees who step out to meet challenges head-on, and who take ownership of their decisions rather than blaming others, make inspiring leaders. If you have someone like this in your organization—hang on to them and invest in them.

    “An effective leader is one who, despite their fears, makes a difficult  decision, initiates action, and has the ego strength to admit to having failed.”

2. Communication

If you’re looking for someone, who will lead your company on the path to success, look for the communicators. These are not the talkers, articulators, or debaters who often look like good communicators using fancy words and skilled talking abilities. Yes, there is a difference between talkers and communicators. What makes a good communicator is not their ability to talk their way through something, or use perfect grammar and diction. It is their ability to get a message across, facilitate collaboration, and encourage mutual benefit. Good communicators are as much a listener, if not more so, as they are a talker.

3. Openness

With the pace of change in a startup environment, the last thing you need from your leaders is rigidity and closed-mindedness. Employees who are able to take in new ideas and receive feedback from others, will increase their learning potential and are the difference between people who grow and those who sink in place. That doesn't mean that leaders should integrate every new idea that comes along, but it does mean that leaders have the ability to entertain new ideas and can thoughtfully consider the feedback of others without automatically assigning it to their identity.

4. Empathy

The skill of empathy is a far too often underrated, and far too often misunderstood, and when it comes to the making of leaders, it is often looked at as a weakness rather than a strength. The need for empathy is often discussed surrounding politics, in our schools, and the world of business. Yet, instead of practicing it in our interactions and even in our writing, it often comes across as just another talking point and as a kind of directive to others rather than an imperative for ourselves. While no skill in and of itself is a silver bullet for effective leadership, if there is one skill that should stand above the rest, it’s empathy. Why is it so powerful? Empathy allows you to tap into the experience of another person. To have a deeper understanding of how that person feels and experiences their world, and in that way, it is like a superpower. If you’re able to feel what another human being is feeling, not only do you help that person access their inner strength and resilience, but you open the door for so many other skills that are needed as a leader—from better communication to the ability to be emotionally agile. So, by all means, advance the people who demonstrate empathy, but keep in mind that recognition of empathy in others is easier when you also practice it yourself.

“If you’re able to feel what another human being is feeling, not only do you  help that person access their inner strength and resilience, but you open the door for so many other skills that are needed as a leader—from better communication  to the ability to be emotionally agile.”

5. Fairness

To be fair, this is a difficult trait to assess. Most of us like to think that we are fair and just people in our personal lives and our work lives. But if we’ve learned anything from science, we know that we all have pre-programmed biases toward certain people, behaviors, and outcomes. So how do you recognize and measure if your employees are demonstrating fairness or not? Start by learning what their colleagues as a whole have to say about them. Is there an average consensus that they are more-often-than-not being treated fairly, or is the data skewed to one side? Also, consider how your employee responds to their colleague expressing their perception of bias on the part of your employee. Does your employee become defensive, make excuses and deny bias on their part, or are they again, willing to take in the feedback, consider it, and change their behavior if needed. A fair-minded leader will set the tone for others to do the same, only elevating the direction of your company.

It's worth mentioning that all of these qualities can be built upon and that regardless of your employee’s current skill levels; as long as there is an openness and desire present, with the right tools and guidance, these qualities and skills can be nurtured into the leaders that will propel your vision and mission forward. To read more on proven ways to cultivate leadership qualities in your team, go here.

If you’ve found this to be useful, please let us know and share it with someone who might also benefit from reading. And if there’s something specific you would like to read about, we’d love to know! Just send an email to [email protected].  

You can read more about specific dimensions that make great leaders, here.

Carina Biddle, M.S., is a Founder and Co-CEO of Upward AI. Upward AI develops innovative and forward-thinking solutions for helping companies reach all of their people development goals. Upward AI relies on science-driven information in Organizational Behavior, Neuroscience, and Psychology and technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to help people do better, feel better and be better. More information can be found here.


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