Leadership Skills: Definition, Examples, & Development

For the more reflective boys among us, like me, he was a role model and natural leader.No leader can be a perfect fit for everybody they lead, but there are leadership skills—which are learnable and teachable—that make a person well suited for guiding a group toward its goals. Psychologists, especially those from the field of industrial-organizational psychology, have spent many hours studying effective leadership. Let’s see how their findings can help you understand and develop your own effective leadership skills.​

Leadership skills are the abilities of an individual to motivate other people to move with willingness and enthusiasm toward the goals they share as a group (Weihrich & Koontz, 2005). While the people who are entrusted with the leadership of such a group definitely need these skills, they can be possessed and exercised by anybody in the group.
 
Leadership can take two styles (Bass, 1985), and leadership skills can be employed to achieve either kind of leadership. First, there is transactional leadership, in which employees comply with expectations so they will be rewarded, and the leader’s job is to ensure that compliance. For example, there are now software systems used in many companies to monitor directly what employees are doing on their computers. They are evaluated for the amount of time they are on task, and they may be punished for being off task or rewarded for staying busy. While this kind of system does enforce compliance and may get results, it does so at the cost of making employees feel overly managed and sometimes even dehumanized (Bass, 1985). In this system, leadership is only really interested in an employee if the employee starts failing to meet performance expectations.
 
On the other hand, there is also the transformational leadership style (Bass, 1998). In this style of leadership, a leader inspires respect and admiration by virtue of being enthusiastic and committed to the organization’s goals. This motivates employees to continue working. These leaders also try to keep their fellow employees intellectually engaged and stimulated by their work, with the idea that this will make for a team of more dedicated and creative problem solvers. Finally, transformational leaders are aware of their workers’ individuality—they provide tailored mentorship and take their employees’ personalities into consideration as they lead. To be an effective leader requires leadership skills in at least four broad categories (Mumford et al., 2000): cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, business skills, and strategic skills. We will look at each of these categories in more depth soon.

When leaders utilize their full array of leadership skills, the people they are leading perform better, and the leaders themselves grow in influence. For example, one study among Army officers found that those at higher ranks of leadership showed more knowledge and greater social and problem-solving skills than lower-ranked officers (Mumford et al., 2000). In the business world, when leaders have a transformational leadership style, their employees perform better (Bass, 1985), are more motivated and effective, and are more satisfied with their jobs (Ilies et al., 2006). Even the customers of the business tend to be more satisfied!
 
Another clear example of the benefits of leadership skills comes from the field of healthcare. A study of hospitals found that those with high-quality leadership—defined as effective management practices—delivered better care and had better clinical outcomes, higher patient satisfaction, higher employee wellbeing, and less burnout among their doctors (Rotenstein et al., 2018).​

To reiterate, the four categories of leadership skills are cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, business skills, and strategic skills (Mumford et al., 2000). Cognitive skills consist of abilities such as monitoring others or collecting and sharing data effectively. Interpersonal skills involve supervision and negotiation skills, good social skills and social judgment, and being people-oriented. Business skills include knowing important information about the organization and its goals, technical skills for providing good service, and the ability to coordinate staff and resources toward a goal. Finally, strategic skills include all manner of executive functioning skills used in the context of running an organization or group of people: problem-solving, planning ahead, evaluating outcomes, and acting as a representative of the organization, for example.
​
Leadership skills can take many forms. Here are some leadership skills that fall into one or more of the categories mentioned above (Curtis & O’Connell, 2011):

Involve employees in decision making (Weihrich & Koontz, 2005). This ensures that employees know that their thoughts are valued and gives them a sense of ownership over their work, even the more routine or mundane tasks. This can increase employee motivation and loyalty and can be accomplished through staff meetings, one-on-one conversations, or “office hours” held by managers or supervisors.

Frequent and flexible communication. Leaders who make it clear that they care about their employees’ work and want to proactively communicate about any changes that are coming in the organization will help their employees feel valued and taken into consideration.

Flexibility with job requirements. Leaders can be open to changes in the specifics of their employees’ roles, so long as their overall goals are not compromised. Being open to changes that will make the role more interesting, more fulfilling, and less repetitive will help employees build attachment to, satisfaction with, and ownership over their roles. This can include offering employees rotating responsibilities, so their jobs do not become too monotonous over time.

Showing respect for employees. Seeing employees as human beings whose quality of life at work matters is an important skill for leaders as well. When leaders make efforts to care for the lived experience of their employees at work, they can raise productivity and reduce employee resistance to working with management (Weinrich & Koontz, 2005).

Empowering employees. A bottom-up approach, wherein employees are invited to be involved in creating a vision for the organization, including asking critical questions and making suggestions for change, helps them feel purposeful and involved. So a related leadership skill is the ability to cede some control to employees, to involve them in these aspects of leadership without feeling threatened by sharing power.​

In many senses, leadership skills are management skills. In a longitudinal study of many, many managers at the company AT&T, the most successful ones demonstrated many key leadership skills, such as decision-making capacity, creativity, competency in oral communication, tolerance for ambiguity, and general social skills (Bray et al., 1974).
 
Leadership skills may differ from management skills in the sense that leaders may be tasked with being more innovative than managers (Deschamps, 2005). In this sense, leaders need to be more creative, take bigger risks and recover from bigger failures, know when to abandon a project entirely, and be open to changes to their system—all traits that aren’t as necessary when one’s primary job is to manage a preexisting system.​

The idea that only certain people can be leaders is a myth; most leadership skills are honed through practice and experience, not genetically gifted to us (Arvey et al., 2006). Nor does the development of leadership skills require a specific kind of educational experience. For example, numerous American presidents did not have a college degree, and just one had a PhD. Instead, leadership skills require experiences of leadership.

To understand how to develop leadership skills, we can turn to research on effective leadership development programs, which usually combine formal education, such as coursework or a mentoring relationship, with practical experience taking charge of a group or project. Several traits of effective leadership programs are worth noting (Popper & Lipshitz, 1993). First, leadership programs teach leaders to develop self efficacy; they must become competent in the domains in which they wish to lead, and they must become comfortable operating autonomously—making decisions with relative independence and ease. Second, the leaders must develop an ability to naturally motivate others, drawing on both their natural interpersonal style and an awareness of how best to reach others. Third, they must develop some of the tools of leadership, such as leading meetings, providing feedback, and general skills of effective communication.​

Youth often develop leadership skills through exposure to a helpful role model or mentor (Reiss, 2007). Mentors often provide youth with opportunities to assume leadership roles on a manageable scale and through a close relationship that gives youth access to a deeper understanding of how one leads. In turn, youth may feel empowered to share more of their personal goals and personal values with the mentor. Youth seem more effective, cooperative, and empathetic—and develop stronger relationships with others—as they develop leadership skills (Gregoric & Owens, 2008).​

• “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” — Jim Rohn
• “Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.” — Pete Hoekstra
• “A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” — Nelson Mandela
• “Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” — Tom Peters
• “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch
• “Leadership is an action, not a position.” — Donald McGannon

My experiences assuming leadership roles have taught me a great deal about my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. I love leading group discussions, especially about difficult topics, and I have been told I am good at it. I find it very fulfilling but also very tiring. In my first leadership role, as a counselor at a sleepaway camp for boys, I learned that I was not much of a dynamic group leader, but I did enjoy resolving disputes between boys and getting to connect with them in quieter moments.

I made peace with my strengths and limitations as a leader, and I hope you can too. None of us will be effective leaders in every way, shape, and form. But we each bring unique gifts to the role. I may never be the driving force or the visionary leading a group, but I have found other ways to contribute as a leader that suit me better. I hope that by reading this article, you have come to recognize the ways in which you are already equipped to lead as well as the domains of leadership skills that you might want to develop further. If you would like more inspiration about specific skills to work on, I recommend watching the following video:​

• Antonio, A. L. (2001). The role of interracial interaction in the development of leadership skills and cultural knowledge and understanding. Research in Higher Education, 42(5), 593–617.
• Arvey, R. D., Rotundo, M., Johnson, W., Zhang, Z., & McGue, M. (2006). The determinants of leadership role occupancy: Genetic and personality factors. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(1), 1–20.
• Bass. B. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. Free Press.
• Bass, B. (1998). Transformational leadership. Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Bray, D. W., Campbell, R. J., & Grant, D. L. (1974). Formative years in business: A long-term AT&T study of managerial lives. Wiley-Interscience.
• Curtis, E. & O’Connell, R. (2011). Essential leadership skills for motivating and developing staff. Nursing Management, 18(5), 32–35.
• Deschamps, J. P. (2005). Different leadership skills for different innovation strategies. Strategy & Leadership, 33(5), 31–38.
• Gregoric, C. & Owens, L. (2008). The effectiveness of peer support leadership training in a South Australian school. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 14(2), 93–112.
• Heslin, P. A., & Keating, L. A. (2017). In learning mode? The role of mindsets in derailing and enabling experiential leadership development. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(3), 367–384.
• Ilies, R., Judge, T., & Wagner, D. (2006). Making sense of motivational leadership: The trail from transformational leaders to motivated followers. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 13(1), 1–22.
• Kalargyrou, V., Pescosolido, A. T., & Kalargiros, E. A. (2012). Leadership skills in management education. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 16(4), 39–63.
• Mumford, M. D., Marks, M. A., Connelly, M. S., Zaccaro, S. J., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (2000). Development of leadership skills: Experience and timing. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 87–114.
• Mumford, M. D., O’Connor, J., Clifton, T. C., Connelly, M. S., & Zaccaro, S. J. (1993). Background data constructs as predictors of leadership. Human Performance, 6(2), 151–195.
• Popper, M., & Lipshitz, R. (1993). Putting leadership theory to work: A conceptual framework for theory-based leadership development. Leadership and Organization Development, 14(7), 23–27.
• Reiss, K. (2007). Leadership and coaching for educators: Bringing out the best in school administrators. Corwin Press.
• Rotenstein, L. S., Sadun, R., & Jena, A. B. (2018). Why doctors need leadership training. Harvard Business Review, 17, 1–5.
• Weihrich, H., & Koontz, H. (2005). Management: A global perspective. McGraw-Hill.