Leadership is a quality that is highly prized by employers. It is difficult to define and even more difficult to measure. Effective leaders motivate and develop their staff to get the best performance out of them, they have happy teams and low staff turnover rate. So it makes economic sense to employ skilled, talented and…

Can leadership be taught? Do you need formal training to be an effective leader? Or is leadership an Attitude, personality trait, a talent? One that you are born with perhaps. The jury is out on this! Let’s take a look at what academics and business people say about the issue. Peter Drucker, a respected business…

I think a good analogy is that of a talent such as the ability to dance, sing, act, play football or be a successful athlete. Those people are born with a set of skills and talent that enable them to excel in their chosen field. They may show an inherent ability and interest, and will…

What are the features and attributes we find in leaders? Many of them are extrovert, although we have probably all met the strong silent influencers, who are the exception that proves the rule Leaders are usually “people people “. That is to say, comfortable interacting with others, and they usually seek leadership positions. It is…

….and so become a better leader. EI can be developed and improved by learning and practising certain skills Empathy is the ability to share another person’s feelings, being able to see things from their viewpoint, being aware of, and sensitive to, and their feelings. It is a difficult skill to master, and requires deliberate effort,…

Remember to word your questions carefully, selecting open or closed questions as appropriate. Closed questions do not encourage the speaker to elaborate on their viewpoint, merely requiring a yes/no answer “Have you always thought that? “ Open questions seek elaboration “Why do you think that? “ Summarising It is useful to summarise at the end…

For me this is related to time management, which we have already discussed on this site and will summarise shortly. The difference is that in organisational skills, you are one step back in the process, in that you are yet to define what needs to be done. This involves being aware of what is going…

Many of us have too many calls on our time, and not enough hours in the day. You can improve the situation by managing the time you do have. In summary time management is;- 1. Produce a list of tasks 2. Prioritise the tasks 3. Perform them in order of priority But it is not…

This is the ability to minimise problems and manage them when they arise. We discussed Crisis and risk management business tools in previous lessons. Although the module focused on the risks to companies from external threats such as terrorism, in the wider sense all risks should be considered by managers, including risks from competitors, poor…

Effective problem solving is a key leadership skill. Problems can sometimes be seen as opportunities, and should always be seen as a learning experience. Problem solving basically involves similar steps to decision making;- Evaluate the problem or situation, or the potential problem Break it down into key components Collect facts, analyse potential solutions and their…