How to improve your leadership skills: 5 tips to apply
First, what are leadership skills? You will find there a million different definitions. We like to think that they are the competences you will trust to gather and mobilize people around a shared objective (such as that project objective, for example). This means that leadership skills cover a wide range from communication and problem solving to empathy and reliability.
But having effective leadership skills is not something that simply appears overnight. Improving your leadership skills requires a conscious effort.
So how can we make this happen? Here are 5 different ways to improve your leadership skills and get the project to successfully cross the finish line.
Table of Contents
How to improve your leadership skills
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Make an extra effort to understand your team
To guide your team well throughout the entire project, you have to start by understanding each of the members of your team. No, this does not mean that you just have to know what coffee you like or what is your favorite place to take away food. You must immerse yourself and understand the really important details about how they prefer to work and communicate.
Where to start People who possess strong management and administrative skills understand the following about each of their team members:
Strengths: in what areas do they stand out?
Weaknesses: what areas do they fight against?
Motivators: what inspires and keeps them focused?
Preferred recognition: how do you like to be rewarded and recognized?
There is no valid leadership method for everyone. Each member of your team is unique. For example, employees respond differently to different incentives and motivations at work: from professional development to the assignment of more challenging tasks and projects.
Having the above information under the sleeve will allow you to prepare the communication style and leadership approach that best suits your team.
Not only will this help you improve your leadership skills, but it will also lead you to a happier and better-performing team. Gallup research shows that people who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be committed to the job. However, only 34% of those responsible can safely name the strengths of their direct reports.
Put it into practice
To improve your leadership skills you must start by improving your leadership communication skills.
Start by holding individual conversations regularly with the members of your project team. If you still don’t have these recurring conversations scheduled, schedule them on the calendar so you have a routine opportunity to connect about your ambitions, strengths, and challenges.
It can also be useful to do a personality test of the entire team, such as Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder, and thus gain a better understanding of what excites your team. This information will not only be useful for you but also all members of your team, as they will continue to collaborate.
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Gives context to the project objectives
Nothing frustrates a project team more than feeling that they are simply a link in the chain. They produce one project after another in series without having a real understanding of the importance of the work being done.
Unfortunately, this is a common problem. According to a Harvard Business Review study, an overwhelming 95% of employees admit that they don’t understand their company’s strategy.
As a project leader, your job is to arm your team with the details and context they need to see the entire forest and not just the trees. Doing this not only gives them a better understanding of the overall objective of the project but also gives them a greater sense of purpose.
That feeling of satisfaction is important for morale and motivation. 9 out of 10 people report that they would be willing to earn less money if that meant being able to do a more relevant job.
Put it into practice
When you wonder how to improve your leadership skills in a given project, the start-up meeting is a great time to start.
During this initial conversation, you have to be prepared to give an exhaustive explanation, not only of what the project itself is but also of the impact it is intended to have. How is this project connected to the overall objectives of the organization?
Don’t think you only have to do this once. You should re-refer to these major objectives as the project progresses so that the final goal is always present in the minds of your team members and continues to motivate them.
This speaks of the importance of a collaborative work management platform that increases transparency and makes it easier for all team members to understand how their contributions fit into the overall context.
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Request comments actively
Imagine that your team has just closed a large project. And now that? Like most project teams, you immediately move on to the next project in the row.
That ambition is admirable, but it does not leave you or your team much time to enter the process and identify what is working well and what is not.
Therefore, people with good leadership skills (whether they are in a formal position of power or not) understand the importance of actively soliciting comments. These leaders recognize that the members of their teams are the ones on the battlefield with the project, so they have the best perception of how things can be changed or improved.
It makes sense, right? Well, still 34% of employees around the world think that their company does not listen to their suggestions on how to do things better at work. As a result, many people have stopped talking. Almost half of the respondents in a Quantum Workplace report admit that they don’t say what they think about the job.
Put it into practice
Anyone willing to know how to improve leadership skills at work must understand the value of a participatory policy that allows members of the project team to share their comments and constructive criticism.
But beyond being available to team members, you have to actively encourage this predisposition to share opinions and ideas. Spend time at the beginning of the project and organize meetings so that you and your whole group can reflect and contribute ideas together.
So everyone will have the space they need to express their opinions on how the next project can go better without feeling that this could be a nuisance or a delay in the schedule.
Next on How to improve your leadership skills
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Trust the team members
You are the person who runs the program and takes care of all the details of the project. It is an important role, but you also run the risk of easily managing your entire team.
We warn you that this is the main complaint of the employees about their leaders. 69% of employees have seriously considered changing jobs because of their boss’s micro-managed.
For that reason, one of the best leadership skills you can have is to recognize when it is time to step back and get out of the way of your team. Your job is to provide the team with the information and context they need and then let them work their best.
It is indeed something that does not come in such a natural way when it is you who has the task of keeping everything in order.
Put it into practice
Knowing the strengths of your team (do you remember the previous advice?) Will be very useful to calm you down and accept that you don’t have to constantly check everything.
You should also set regularly scheduled checks (both individual and with the whole team) so that you are aware of the progress of the project without having to constantly go to the desks or appear in the inboxes. During these meetings, be sure to ask questions about the progress of things instead of issuing orders or criticism constantly.
Finally, this is another time when a collaborative work management platform can be beneficial. It gives you greater visibility and boosts responsibility to the team without having to micro-manage anything. You can check it out by starting with a free Wrike trial. Next on How to improve your leadership skills
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Preach by example
When it comes to answering the classic question about how to improve your leadership skills, we can reduce it to our simplest answer: lead by example.
You and your team likely have some basic rules established to ensure that projects run smoothly, from having centralized communication to always respecting delivery dates. However, you cannot expect others to follow those directions if you do not do it yourself.
Because there is nothing worse than a “Do what I say, but not what I do.” For that reason, this last tip is the behavior to improve the most important leaders of all.
Put it into practice
This advice is easy in theory, but much more difficult in practice. You must stay on the same standard and act in the way you want your team members to behave. And there are no exceptions for you as a project manager.
As part of your task of requesting comments, encourage your project team to also notify you if they ever see you contradicting yourself or disobeying a guideline. This will help you capture any mistakes you would otherwise have lost.
Good leadership, good project
Being an effective project manager is not just about coordinating the details. You also have to know how to manage and motivate the people who are part of the project team. This requires certain effective leadership skills.
Take a look at this infographic to help get you in motion
If you are a project manager who is trying to figure out how to improve your leadership quality, the five previous tactics can help you gain the trust and respect of your team. To recap, you can improve your leadership skills:
How to improve your leadership skills: 5 tips to apply
- Knowing the details about how your team members work and communicate
- Providing context on project objectives
- Actively soliciting opinions from team members on how to improve your leadership skills
- Trusting that your team members know how to do their job well (without micromanagement)
- Preaching by example in all your responsibilities and interactions
- Do all this and you will progress by being seen as a leader and not only as of the executor of the project’s role.
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