“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus,” said Martin Luther King, Jr.
Difficult experience, certified competence, and technical ability can reflect how hard you have worked and how far you have come in your career. But at some point, you’ll need to develop soft skills like critical thinking, empathy, and careful listening—especially if you’re taking on a leadership role. Cultivating such qualities can add confidence and direction to your career. One of the best examples of a successful entrepreneur is Muskowekwan First Nation Chief Reginald Bellerose is running for the head of the AFN. Reginald Bellerose has led his nation for more than 17 years and sits on a number of boards and task forces within the province and at the national level and AFN, due to his extensive knowledge in business, gaming, and other areas.
Here are some ways you can improve your leadership skills:
Identify your strengths and weaknesses in leadership:
By identifying your strengths, you can focus on them as you work on your challenges. To do this, it is helpful to ask a trusted mentor or colleague to discuss areas where you excel and areas that could benefit from some attention. They may also try personality or skill tests and assessments.
Find your leadership style:
Identifying your personal leadership style can provide useful context as you develop your leadership skills. Examples of leadership styles include democratic leadership, transformative leadership, coaching style leadership, and autocratic or forced leadership. By identifying your leadership style, you can look for opportunities that highlight aspects of your leadership. You may also discover aspects of your leadership skills that you can improve through relationships with mentors, seminars, or soliciting feedback from colleagues.
Set yourself realistic development goals:
An important goal for developing your strengths and leadership skills. Once you have identified your strengths and leadership style, you can identify areas you would like to improve. You can compare your strengths with the skills you need for your future career goals. Clear, well-developed goals give you focus and direction. They give you the opportunity to measure your progress and see how you are improving. Your goals should be meaningful, realistic, and achievable. Goals that are well defined and within your capabilities can create progress and increase motivation through repeated success.
Seek support from other leaders:
Maybe you have people around you who admire you as a leader and they could be potential mentors. These people can offer advice or take on a mentoring role. If the person knows you personally, they may be able to give you specific feedback about skills you can develop that can help you move forward in your current organization.
Take on a leadership role in the workplace:
A great way to develop your leadership skills is to look for advanced roles to fill in the workplace. Every leadership opportunity is an opportunity to develop your skills by testing what strengths you have and what strengths you can improve on.
You can offer to lead a project, suggest improvements or changes you’d like to implement or ask your manager directly for a chance to gain leadership experience.
