If there’s anything the global workforce needs most, it’s more effective leaders. And its not restricted to those only with the title, but also those who have non-managerial responsibilities. Leadership and management traits are highly enviable qualities prized by employers.
In fact, when LinkedIn analyzed paid job postings and the core skills of professionals who were headhunted or hired within six months in 2023, the findings in their report revealed that management and leadership—ranking one and four respectively in the top 10 skills list—are critically important skills that employers need right now.
Leadership attitudes are also listed as “skills on the rise” in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 report, with a 53% uptake in importance.
So it’s evident that your career stands to benefit from adopting leadership qualities and developing your leadership skills, even if you’re not actively seeking a promotion, because you’ll have increased career opportunities and be a more attractive candidate to employers.
Here are five easy ways you can demonstrate your leadership skills this year:
1. Be Innovative
The most prominent and successful entrepreneurs and business leaders who are shaping the future and have developed ground-breaking creations share one thing in common: innovation. Whatever you decide to call it—innovation, problem-solving, or creative thinking—the core of innovation is the attitude of thinking outside of the box.
Never limit yourself to what has already been done or proven. Why can’t the status quo be challenged? Why does the norm need to remain the norm? What might happen if you explored a new angle with your team? How can you push boundaries this year and do your part in enabling your organization to grow?
2. Be Productive
As an aspiring leader, you will always be busy. There will be plenty of meetings, stakeholders, and incidents at work to deal with, and you’ll need to be skilled at time management and multitasking to be efficient.
3. Be Proactive
Are you the person who readily volunteers to take on new projects to challenge yourself, or for the purpose of helping your co-workers as part of the team? Use your innovation to think of ways you can contribute to the success of your team and work collectively. Look out for opportunities to take initiative.
4. Be Collaborative
Don’t operate in a silo. Take initiative and collaborate, not only with your own team, but cross-functionally with other departments. This is one of the juicy ingredients to an organization’s success, because whenever teams work in silo as opposed to collaboratively, it can lead to frustration, confusion, delays, or lack of alignment with the company’s goals.
Engaging with multiple teams will also boost your own career, because cross-functional collaboration is one of the critical competencies that will be assessed whenever you are interviewed for a role internally or externally. It demonstrates that you have excellent relationship-building, communication, and even conflict resolution skills.
5. Be Positive
Engaging with multiple teams will also boost your own career, because cross-functional collaboration is one of the critical competencies that will be assessed whenever you are interviewed for a role internally or externally. It demonstrates that you have excellent relationship-building, communication, and even conflict resolution skills.
5. Be Positive
Attitude is everything. Your career success, and that of your organization, hinges on your ability to hold a positive outlook to organizational change, being forward-thinking and maintaining a bright vision, and the positive example and atmosphere you set before others