Leadership Skills - Simplified!
As the world is moving towards AI & GenAI, should one worry about possessing good leadership skills? I say YES, more than ever!
I recently conducted a survery on LinkedIn on what skills are key for someone to be considered as a good leader. The survey resulted in only 5% voting for handling crisis & making decisions. Given the current tech crisis and every business being artificially forced to ride the AI hype train, I expected the voters would have ‘handling crisis & making decisions’ on top of their mind.
Since it is not, these are the questions that arise in my mind ‘Are we measuring our leaders with the right OKRs?’ and ‘Are we training next gen leaders & DEI leaders with the right set of tools?’
CNBC quotes that 65% of businesses spend $2500 per employee in a year towards their leadership development. These are often workshops & virtual programs. Do you consider yourself ready to be a parent after a lamaze training? If the answer is no, how can a certification be enough to qualify a person to become a good leader. And to complicate things further, we have successfully coined various tag names to go with leadership - Authentic, Inclusive, Ambidextrous, Servant leadership, etc, etc. This has resulted in an additional long list of categorized courseworks & training programs. I took a few of this but none of the learnings stuck to me.
As someone who navigated becoming a first time mom and working for a startup at the same time, I have internalized that most things in life, if new and if you want to make an impact, it does not come with a manual. You have to create your own manual to enable a maintainance routine & empower your team. And THAT, is the job of a leader. And what are the skills you need - ‘It depends’.
Sharing with you all how I navigate to make a list of the dependent factors..
What is the business? - I am a techie, why should I worry about this? The answer is ‘even more so’ especially if you are a techie. Because end of the day you want to build products that not only solve a problem but also generate revenue.
Where am I map? - Is this a new product? If not, is this a new challenge for an existing product? Am I revolutionizing an industry? If it is an existing product, what problem am I trying to solve - Am I working on making the product better or helping the team bring in more revenue?
You may ask how any of this is related to leadership skills? A leader needs to have a vision and have an ability to exert influence to execute it successfully. And having a vision is not a quality you need to possess only if you have a title. Every single person is entitled to have one and the aperture of it grows wider as your responsibilities grow as you move up the ladder. These two fundamental question would help you define your why?
Once you have a broader understanding of the challenge, you strategize and execute. (Strategy is another blurry term for many, a topic for the future Simplified forum)
Now that you have your vision & strategy defined, you use your people skills. This is where empathy, communication, inclusion, being authentic, ambidexterous and most importantly, exerting influence comes in. Remember, ‘Because I said so’ with your positional power can only stretch so far. If you want to be a good leader for life, you need to be able to build the mastery of influence in the right fashion way.
Handling crisis & making decisions are skills you need to exert ALL THE TIME if you are a leader. It is not an option but a mandate. And be curious to learn & evaluate the factors that can impact your vision & adjust your strategy periodically. It is a cycle and not a straight line.
In your experience, how many training programs you have taken that helps you learn all of these skills. Even if you have taken multiple that has a flavor of each, even then it would account for only 10%
So the next time you are sponsoring your mentee or that next DEI candidate or building a training program for your employees, ensure you have some practical aspects as well. How about a shadow project that would get some training on ground?
Who has been that leader who had that lasting impression on you? What worked the most/best for you as a leader? Remember, you don’t need a title to call yourself a leader :) Leave your thoughts in comments..