The key to successful AI integration across the organization is helping leaders at all levels understand how their use of AI connects to the organization’s collective mission. One way to achieve this is by assisting leaders in understanding the soft skills required to thrive during AI transformation.

Why Soft Skills Are Important for AI Transformation

In the context of leadership, soft skills are key qualities like empathy, compassion, and authenticity that help us form strong connections with others. These skills are just as important, if not more so, than technical skills, such as the ability to use AI. It’s tempting for organizations to think leveraging AI and soft skills means helping all their employees understand how to use AI to work more efficiently in their roles. While AI advancements can significantly enhance operational efficiency and help individuals uncover new insights, they cannot replace the uniquely human aspects of leadership.

At CCL, we believe that human leadership will guide and shape the future. The true strength of leadership lies in the uniquely human qualities that AI cannot replicate, such as empathy, vision, curiosity, and the ability to inspire others. Understanding the relationship between AI and soft skills is crucial for leaders to effectively harness AI’s potential while maintaining a human-centered approach.

The value of leadership soft skills extends beyond individual interactions; they’re essential for navigating complex challenges, fostering innovation, and building resilient teams. Collectively leveraging these soft skills across the organization is an essential factor in successfully navigating AI transformation. While leaders at all levels require a foundational understanding of AI, and some soft skills are important regardless of level, the essential soft skills for leveraging AI look different at different levels.

Senior Leaders: Guiding Ethics, Innovation & Vision

Senior leaders are often charged with designing a strategy in alignment with their organization’s mission, vision, and values. They’re also guiding the organization through uncharted territory. AI transformation is causing rapid change, and senior leaders play a key role in helping their organizations both navigate this change and thrive amidst it. Here are 4 key soft skills senior leaders need to guide their organizations through AI transformation.

• Communication: Senior leaders must drive clear and transparent communication about AI initiatives, goals, and integration. Such transparency helps foster a culture of psychological safety and builds commitment throughout the organization by helping the employees (or everyone) understand the collective vision of why AI transformation is essential.
• Trust: Senior leaders build trust by explaining the benefits, limitations, and implications of AI to stakeholders. This vulnerability can signal to the rest of the organization that “we’re in this together” and build buy-in for key initiatives.
• Ethics: Senior leaders must champion ethical AI practices in their organizations, and they serve as the role models for the rest of the organization’s leaders to follow. Organizations that lack clear ethical guidelines for AI risk eroding trust, inviting bias or misuse, and undermining both employee and public confidence in their leadership and decisions.
• Learning Agility: Senior leaders must cultivate a culture of continuous learning and innovation within their organizations by modeling the traits and behaviors they seek. By creating opportunities for skill development and recognizing learning-oriented behaviors, they also influence others in the organization to experiment and innovate, further shifting organizational culture.

Managers: Translating Strategy & Execution

Managers bridge the gaps between strategic direction and operational reality. Middle managers often find themselves pulled in multiple directions — upward toward senior leaders, sideways toward peers, and downward toward direct reports — so interpersonal skills like clear communication, influence, and collaboration become as critical as technical competence. Here are the 4 skills managers need to best leverage AI transformation.

• Collaboration: Managers need to navigate organizational politics and structures to connect AI potential with strategic goals. To achieve this, they must lead with empathy and adaptability, understanding their organization’s AI strategy, how it will reshape workflows and operations, and foster collaborative and productive working relationships between and across teams and functions.
• Communication: Managers must ensure clear communication about AI’s role and implications to employees to build trust and psychological safety. Serving as the bridge between individual contributors and senior leadership, they help foster understanding and collaboration across organizational boundaries.
• Learning Agility: Managers must continually identify opportunities for their teams where AI can enhance efficiency and productivity. By being adaptable, and helping model that adaptability for their teams, they can quickly integrate AI into existing workflows or spot opportunities for creating new workflows.
• Influence: Managers must encourage teams to explore AI tools and foster a psychologically safe environment for innovation. They should leverage their influence to build consensus and drive commitment toward adopting AI technologies in an ethical and productive way.

Individual Contributors: Innovators Inspired by AI 

Individual contributors are at the frontline of AI transformation. They’re often the first to integrate AI into their everyday work, and they’re experimenting with ways to do more and do better with AI. Individual contributors play a vital role in shaping strategy and executing AI initiatives, yet they often lack the communication, influence, and self-awareness skills required to translate their expertise into broader impact. Here are the key soft skills individual contributors need to best navigate AI transformation:

• Learning Agility: Individual contributors need to invest in personal AI literacy — understanding AI’s capabilities, AI tools, and how to take full advantage of AI to enhance their current role. Embracing learning agility can give these contributors the versatility, adaptability, and growth mindset to best leverage AI.
• Creativity: Individual contributors can immediately leverage AI to enhance their creativity. For example, they can use AI to augment problem-solving, facilitate brainstorming, and spur innovative thinking by exploring new ideas (or working with AI to challenge existing thinking).
• Resilience: While AI can be empowering, it can also be a threat in terms of replacing roles. For individual contributors, building a resilient mindset can help navigate this uncertainty — they can do this by leveraging AI to amplify their own skills as well as helping others remain resilient and be ready for what AI trends emerge next. This requires individuals to challenge and refine AI-generated output to ensure relevance and reliability.
• Collaboration: Individual contributors can serve as educators in their organizations, helping others understand terminology, promote ethical usage, and identify when to and when not to best leverage AI in the flow of work. Turning AI into a collaborative tool in your organization can enhance impact at multiple levels: individuals, teams, and the organization.

Navigating AI Transformation — A Leadership Imperative

To thrive amid AI transformation, leaders must embrace AI as an essential tool while cultivating the soft skills that define effective leadership. AI can certainly provide productivity gains and organizational efficiencies, but it’s not a substitute for the essential human qualities that make up good leadership. Whether you are a senior leader, manager, or individual contributor, understanding and developing these skills will enable you to navigate AI transformation by bolstering both your own individual performance and your organizational impact.

When leaders at all levels leverage soft skills along with AI capabilities, their organizations can best harness AI’s potential. Embrace this opportunity to grow and lead with AI, ensuring you and your organization are ready for the future.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We have a number of leadership solutions to help you upskill your talent with soft skill development, in the format that’s best for your unique situation.

The post Essential Soft Skills to Lead Through AI Transformation appeared first on CCL.

Government leaders today face an array of challenges, which we explore, along with the implications for development, below.

Top Challenges of Government Leaders vs. Business Leaders

Do leaders in the public sector face different challenges from their private sector counterparts? If so, do those differences alter the skills and behaviors required for good leadership? How might these differences impact leader development? For decades, our research team has been working to understand which skills leaders in different fields need most to succeed.

To answer these questions, our researchers studied 1,500 US federal government civilian leaders and a sample of more than 500 private sector business leaders who attended our leadership programs over 5 years. We found that leaders from both sectors named similar leadership challenges and prioritized them in parallel, for the most part. Here’s what we found were the top challenges in government vs. the private sector:

However, we also noted that the unique setting and context of the public sector lead to subtle, but very real and noteworthy, differences, too.

A deeper look at the data shows that the government environment impacts some of the challenges its leaders face. In particular, many government leaders feel acute financial and constitutional constraints that may impact their ability to motivate employees, navigate fiscal concerns, deal with problem employees, and drive organizational change innovation in a traditional environment with complex regulations and bureaucracy.

These key differences alter how public sector leaders should behave, the skills they need to succeed, and the development necessary to help them meet those challenges.

4 Skills Government Leaders Need to Succeed

To understand the skills government leaders need to be successful in an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), we conducted additional research, based on an analysis of leadership effectiveness data from more than 16,000 managers working in the government sector who attended our leadership programs over a period of several years.

As noted in our white paper, we found 4 skills most critical for government leaders’ success:

• Leading employees;
• Leading change;
• Developing participative management skills; and
• Understanding boundaries and how to span them.

We also found that the ability to put people at ease is the leadership competency most highly rated in terms of importance among the government leaders we studied.

Government Leaders: Strengths

Our research shows government sector managers are skilled in several important areas, such as resourcefulness, straightforwardness, and composure, as well as building and mending relationships, decisiveness, and doing whatever it takes.

Understanding differences is another strong point of government leaders. Those who are able do so are seen as quick to acquire new knowledge, resourceful, and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve agreed-upon goals.

These findings show that government agencies have a group of interpersonally skilled, intelligent, and committed leaders — a powerful asset on which to build.

Government Leaders: Challenge Areas

3 Top Priorities for Government Leadership Development

Clearly, government leaders are recognized for their commitment, service to the nation, and unwavering dedication to their mission. However, these same leaders fall short in several important areas. These are the biggest government leadership challenges that our researchers uncovered, and increasing capacity in these ways should be a top priority for leader development in the government sector.

1. Leading Employees

Our research shows that leading employees is something managers learn from a variety of experiences during their careers. Yet while leading employees was seen as the most important competency for government leaders, it was rated as next to last, in terms of leader effectiveness.

Leading employees in the public sector is highly challenging, and government leaders can benefit from further development in the key skills required to create direction, alignment, and commitment among their employees. Core skills in this arena include identifying and hiring talented staff, delegating and following up, and developing employees.

Agencies that seek to retain their top talent and develop them in this area often focus on identification and development of high-potential employees, making sure they have training and opportunities that offer them a broad and deep foundation for moving forward within the organization.

2. Responding to and Managing Change

Change management was rated as important by more than half of those who responded in our study, but was in the bottom half of the leadership competencies in terms of effectiveness.

Government sector leaders can learn more about responding to and managing change and can develop a more participative leadership style. This means placing greater emphasis on involving others in decision-making and getting more input before taking action. These are skills that can be developed through training initiatives focused on enhancing self-awareness and by working with a coach over time.

Developmental assignments are the linchpin for leaders with the confidence to manage change. Assignments that are outside of their primary technical area provide a different perspective. They can see how their technical area fits into the greater whole, so they can better understand and manage change across the organization.

3. Providing Cross-Organizational Experiences to Increase Boundary Spanning

Too narrow a functional or departmental orientation is the most likely reason for managers in government to derail.

Leaders at all levels can encourage the development of this leadership competency by providing opportunities for their direct reports and high-potential leaders to reach outside their own functional or departmental experiences. A diversity of experiences (different assignments, developmental relationships, classroom training) can round out skills and broaden perspectives, reducing the possibility of derailment.

Government leaders who seek to remain in their own silo are doomed to obsolescence. Without access to additional resources — even when unit performance or challenges merit those investments — leaders may need to collaborate even more intently and effectively with peers to accomplish the mission. That’s why it’s critical that government leaders are able to collaborate across boundaries.

Participative management encourages the involvement of employees at all levels of the organization to create resources through relationships and organizational synergies. Often, this includes increasing collaboration and communication across agency and departmental silos.

Implications for Leadership Development of Government Leaders

In a VUCA environment, government organizations can’t afford to put resources into generalized leadership development and simply hope they’ll achieve the right outcomes.

Instead, well-targeted leader development initiatives are essential to close critical competency gaps and ensure individual and organizational success in the public sector. Effective and well-trained government leaders will be able to meet the nation’s needs, manage the work, and find innovative and effective solutions to complex challenges.

Using our research on government leaders as a starting point, public sector agencies and organizations have the opportunity to reassess their current leadership capacity and can begin focused efforts to develop skills their leaders need, both today and for the future.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We’ve been delivering leadership development programs for public sector employees for decades. We can help individuals, agencies, and departments work together to overcome government leadership challenges. Learn more about our GSA-approved leadership programs for individual development, or partner with the experts in our government leadership development practice.

The post Creating Tomorrow’s Government Leaders: An Overview of Top Government Leadership Challenges appeared first on CCL.

This is session 2 in our series, Adapting How You Adapt to Disruption. Be sure to explore the other sessions as well:

• Session 1 — Shaping Organizational Culture Through Shared Sensemaking
• Session 3 — Building Collective Capabilities Through a Relational View of Leadership

Leading in disruption requires more than new skills — it requires deeper leadership capacity. The ability to understand the human-centered aspects of leadership and connect deeply with others is critical in today’s hybrid workplaces and increasingly technology-saturated world.

Yet leadership capacity can be constrained by internalized assumptions and limiting beliefs. In this webinar, we’ll explore how belief barriers hold people back, preventing leaders from addressing shared issues or adapting to new people and situations they encounter. You’ll gain insight into how, as challenges become more complex and interconnected, leaders must be able to recognize polarities, navigate competing tensions, and “zoom out” to see broader systems.

Key to expanding leadership capacity is highly individualized development that includes personalized coaching. Leadership coaching provides a supportive environment where leaders can uncover and overcome internal barriers, explore new perspectives, and challenge assumptions, facilitating profound personal and professional growth. Through coaching, leaders can gain clarity, enhance their decision-making skills, foster stronger relationships with their teams, and increase resilience, especially in uncertain environments.

Ultimately, organizations that go beyond skill development, supporting individuals in embracing new perspectives, growing bigger mindsets, and overcoming belief barriers can dramatically increase leadership capacity. Join us to unlock new levels of effectiveness at your organization by expanding how your leaders at all levels think and lead through uncertainty.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:

• Identify internalized assumptions that serve as belief barriers holding back leadership capacity
• Recognize polarities and shift to a both / and mindset to approach them
• Increase adaptability and build individual leadership capacity at your organization

The post Expanding Individual Leadership Capacity Amid Disruption appeared first on CCL.

To answer these questions, you must think about a different kind of learning and development. Yes, you want to ensure that you’re preparing a pipeline of leaders for the future. But how exactly are you doing that?

Your organization needs both horizontal and vertical development to get you there.

The Difference Between Horizontal & Vertical Leadership Development

As outlined in our white paper, when we say horizontal development, we mean the traditional kind of talent development: increasing technical skillsets and building the most important leadership competencies. If your organization is like most, you’re probably already providing all sorts of opportunities for horizontal development — disseminating more knowledge, skills, and information to people. These skills are essential and necessary — but they aren’t sufficient amid the perpetual disruption that organizations face today.

In contrast, vertical development is entirely different. What is vertical development?

Vertical development is about developing more complex and sophisticated ways of thinking, greater wisdom, and clearer insights. It’s called vertical development because it’s based on levels, or vertical stages, of thinking. It involves gaining new perspectives and leadership mindsets needed to make your organizational strategy work.

For example, with vertical development, managers and groups learn to tackle a problem with inquiry — questions, observation, and reflection — before jumping into advocating, lobbying, or deciding. This sensemaking opens the door to deeper understanding, greater clarity, more options, and multiple right answers — which are especially needed for leading in complex, uncertain situations.

In short, horizontal development builds skills, while vertical development helps build a more interconnected, interdependent leadership culture in your organization.

In the face of perpetual crisis, leaders must adapt, not just react. Explore our guide to Leadership in Disruption to learn how leading with culture, vision, and collective agility helps organizations thrive through complexity.

Get the Guide

How Vertical Development Happens

3 Conditions That Catalyze Vertical Development for Leaders

Our research has found that these 3 primary conditions support vertical leadership development:

1. Heat experiences
2. Colliding perspectives
3. Elevated sensemaking

Many well-intentioned leadership development programs fail to deliver lasting results because they hit on only 1 or 2 of the conditions needed for vertical development. And any one of the above can provide some value, but it’s not until you combine all 3 that you have vertical development, and vertical growth really takes off. Let’s take a closer look at each of these 3 conditions.

Heat Experiences: The What

When leaders face complex situations that disrupt and disorient their habitual ways of thinking, when they know the pressure is on and the results matter, they are in heat experiences. These situations help leaders discover that their current way of making sense of the world is inadequate. As a result, they seek out new and better ways to make sense of their challenge. Heat experiences are the what that initiates vertical development.

For example, a general manager who’s been successful in the US gets transferred to India to open a new facility. She’s out of her depth, and the consequences of failing are real.

Colliding Perspectives: The Who

Leaders also can challenge their existing mental models when they’re exposed to others with different worldviews, opinions, backgrounds, and training. These relationships increase the number of perspectives through which leaders experience their world. Colliding experiences are the who that enables vertical development.

For example, bringing together leaders from different functions and departments who normally wouldn’t work together and asking them to solve real problems together. Suddenly, they’re exposed to beliefs, perspectives, and priorities that they had little or no exposure to before.

Elevated Sensemaking: The How

As leaders process and make sense of these perspectives and experiences, they enter an elevated stage of vertical development. A larger, more advanced worldview emerges and, with time, stabilizes and becomes their new way of thinking. This is the how that integrates development, particularly when preparing high-potential leaders for the unknown.

For example, members of an executive team use action inquiry tools to examine a difficult issue. As they uncover the beliefs and thinking behind their behavior, they begin to discard, keep, or update their mindsets to align with the leadership culture needed for their organizational strategy.

Is Your Organization Focused on Both Horizontal & Vertical Development?

Questions to Ask

Are both horizontal and vertical development factored into how you think about your organization’s culture, and how you are tackling talent development challenges? Consider these questions:

• Does our organization understand the difference between horizontal vs. vertical development? Are both horizontal and vertical development incorporated strategically into our leadership development methods and approach? If not, why?
• Is our organization aligning our leadership culture to our strategy? Organizational leadership cultures develop through different stages: dependent, independent, and, eventually, interdependent. Has our team worked out which leadership culture our strategy requires? Are we designing leadership development to match?
• Do we understand how leaders make different sense of disruption and systemic crises at each of the stages? Whether explicitly or implicitly, is this understanding blended into the way we develop our leaders? Development that helps leaders overcome belief barriers enables systemic solutions to systemic problems.

The Benefits of Investing in Vertical Leadership Development

Developing more complex mindsets alone won’t be successful if you don’t also pursue a leadership culture that supports them, according to our research. You must change embedded beliefs to change culture; when you do, vertical growth can help the whole organization win. Our research with clients has identified 5 organizational outcomes that vertical development creates:

• Silo-busting: Trust builds across silos. Collaboration spans boundaries and creates more productive partnerships.
• Agile decisions: Decisions are made with a system-wide perspective. Team and organizational challenges are visible and managed in an environment where people support one another.
• Enterprise ownership: Leaders are committed to the entire organization’s performance, not just their own division or team.
• Dilemma-readiness: Instead of insisting on one correct view, senior leaders use “both / and” polarity thinking, seeing tensions as ongoing dilemmas rather than problems to solve. Multiple perspectives align the organization to new approaches through debate and dialogue.
• Strategic complexity / disruptive capability: As leaders share information across boundaries, they learn to work together effectively. The team strengthens collaboration and creates a culture of full engagement.

Your Role in Tailoring Development, Both Horizontal & Vertical

Employees come into their roles with different experiences, skills, perspectives, and stages of development. L&D leaders must put experience at the center of talent management, tailor development, and meet people where they are — as not everyone is ready for the same challenges at the same time.

For example, you may emphasize horizontal development for your early-career talent, but you can plant the seeds for vertical development for them, too. Learning from heat experiences, witnessing colliding perspectives, and helping elevate their sensemaking can support frontline leaders through many of the common challenges that first-time managers face.

And for experienced executives, senior leaders need different leadership skills, so their process of vertical development will likely be more complex and collaborative — but their mindsets or approaches may be more fixed.

There’s an important difference between helping a leader grow and trying to force it, though. At each stage of development, both horizontal and vertical development are important. Your role is to create the right conditions in which many different people can grow and develop.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Partner with us for both horizontal and vertical development that’s tailored to your organization’s unique context and culture. Learn more about our talent development services and solutions.

The post Vertical vs. Horizontal Development: Why Your Leaders Need Both to Succeed appeared first on CCL.

We need good leaders to help guide us and make the essential decisions, big and small, that keep things moving forward.

Our society is usually quick to identify a bad leader, but how can you identify a good one? What would most people say are the qualities of a good leader?

What Good Leadership Looks Like

Based upon our decades of research and experience working with leaders at thousands of organizations around the world, we’ve found that the best leaders consistently possess certain fundamental qualities and skills. Here are 12 essential leadership traits.

1. Self-Awareness
2. Respect
3. Compassion
4. Vision
5. Communication
6. Learning Agility
7. Collaboration
8. Influence
9. Integrity
10. Courage
11. Gratitude
12. Resilience

1. Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the understanding of yourself, including personality traits, behaviors, anxieties, and emotions. While this is a more inwardly focused trait, self-awareness and humility are paramount qualities of leadership. The better you understand yourself and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses, the more effective you can be as a leader. Do you know how other people view you, and do you understand how you show up at work and at home? Take the time to learn about the 4 aspects of self-awareness and how to strengthen each component.

2. Respect

Respect, when demonstrated consistently, is one of the most important things a leader can do. It helps ease tensions and conflict, fosters trust, and improves your effectiveness. Creating a culture of respect is about more than just the absence of disrespect. Respectfulness can be shown in many different ways, but it often starts with showing you truly value others’ perspectives and making an effort to build belonging in the workplace — both critical components of healthy workplace cultures.

3. Compassion

Compassion is more than simply showing empathy or even listening and seeking to understand. Compassion requires leaders to act on what they learn. After someone shares a concern or speaks up about something, they won’t feel truly heard if their leader doesn’t then take some type of meaningful action on the information, our researchers have found. This is the core of compassionate leadership, and it helps to build trust, increase collaboration, and decrease turnover across organizations.

4. Vision

Vision is your aspiration for the future. Motivating others and garnering commitment toward that vision are essential parts of leadership. Purpose-driven leaders ensure they connect their team’s daily tasks and the values of individual team members to the overall direction of the organization. This can help employees find meaning in their work — which increases engagement, inspires trust, and drives priorities forward. You’ll want to communicate the vision in ways that help others understand it, remember it, and go on to share it themselves.

5. Communication

Communication shows up in many ways, from transmitting information and storytelling to soliciting input and using active listening techniques. The best leaders are skilled communicators who can communicate in a variety of ways, both orally and in writing, and with a wide range of people from different backgrounds, roles, levels, geographies, and more, because leadership and communication are intertwined. The quality and effectiveness of communication among leaders at your organization will directly affect the success of your business strategy, too.

6. Learning Agility

Learning agility is the ability to know what to do when you don’t know what to do. If you’re a “quick study” or are able to excel in unfamiliar circumstances, you might already be learning agile. But anybody can foster and increase learning agility through intentional practice and effort. After all, great leaders are really great learners.

7. Collaboration

Collaboration is a characteristic shown when leaders work effectively with a variety of colleagues of different social identities, locations, roles, and experiences. As the world has become more complex and interconnected, good leaders find themselves spanning boundaries and learning to work across various types of divides and organizational silos. When leaders value and embrace collaboration, whether within their teams or cross-functionally, several benefits arise — including increased innovation, higher-performing teams, and a more engaged and empowered workforce.

8. Influence

Influence, or being able to persuade people through thoughtful use of appropriate influencing tactics, is an important trait of inspiring, effective leaders. For some people, “influence” may sound unseemly. But as a leader, you must be able to influence others to get the work done — you cannot do it all alone. Influence is quite different from manipulation, and it needs to be done authentically and transparently. It requires high levels of emotional intelligence and trust.

9. Integrity

Integrity is being consistent, honest, moral, and trustworthy, and it’s an essential leadership trait for the individual and the organization. It’s especially important for top-level executives who are charting the organization’s course and making countless other significant decisions. Our research has found that leader integrity is a potential blind spot for organizations, so make sure you reinforce the importance of honesty and integrity to managers at all levels.

10. Courage

Courage enables both team members and leaders to take bold actions that move things in the right direction. It can be hard to speak up at work, whether you want to voice a new idea, provide feedback to a direct report, or flag a concern for someone above you. That’s part of the reason courage is a key leadership trait — it takes courage to do what’s right! Leaders who promote high levels of psychological safety in the workplace enable their teams to speak up freely and share candid concerns without fear of repercussions. This fosters a coaching culture that supports courage and truth-telling.

11. Gratitude

Gratitude is the uplifting emotion experienced after receiving something of value. Being thankful can lead to higher self-esteem, reduced depression and anxiety, and better sleep. Sincere gratitude can even make you a better leader. Yet few people regularly say “thank you” in work settings, even though most people say they’d be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss. The best leaders know how to show frequent gratitude in the workplace.

12. Resilience

Resilience is more than the ability to bounce back from obstacles and setbacks — it’s the ability to respond adaptively to challenges. Practicing resilient leadership means you’ll project a positive outlook that will help others maintain the emotional strength they need to commit to a shared vision, and the courage to move forward and overcome setbacks. A good leader focuses on resilience, both taking care of themselves and also prioritizing leading employee wellbeing, too — thereby enabling better performance for themselves and their teams.

3 Core Truths About the Traits of Good Leaders

At the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®, we’ve been researching the traits of a good leader and the role of leadership for nearly 6 decades. Here are 3 of our core tenets about good leaders and effective leadership.

Good leaders are made, not born.

First, we believe that leaders are made, not born. Put another way, leadership is a skill that can be developed. Good leaders are molded through experience, continued study, intentional effort, and adaptation. So you can strengthen any of these 12 characteristics of a good leader, if you’re open to growth, use your experiences to fuel development, and put in the time and effort toward self-improvement.

Similarly, organizations can help their people hone these top leadership qualities by providing ample opportunities for training, offering support for learning from challenges, and providing access to coaching and mentoring programs.

Leadership is a social process.

It’s also essential to recognize that leadership is less about one strong or charismatic individual, and more about a group of people working collectively to achieve results together. If you demonstrate several of the characteristics of a good leader, but fail to grasp this key point, chances are you won’t get very far on your own. You may be well-liked and respected, but it will be challenging to accomplish team or organizational goals. At CCL, we like to say that the outcomes of leadership are about creating direction, alignment, and commitment, or DAC, within a group.

Good leadership never stops.

Also, we believe that leadership isn’t a destination, it’s a journey — it’s something that you’ll have to work at regularly throughout your career, regardless of what level you reach in your organization or what industry you work in. Different teams, projects, and situations will provide different challenges and require different leadership qualities and competencies to succeed. So you will need to be able to continue to apply these leadership characteristics in different ways throughout your career. Just continually keep learning and growing, and you’ll be an agile learner with a long career.

How to Develop and Nurture the Qualities of a Good Leader

Organizations can strengthen leadership qualities and foster deeper levels of engagement at work through providing a variety of on-the-job learning experiences, mentoring, and formal development opportunities. At CCL, we have many award-winning leadership solutions with clients around the world, and we’d be honored to work with you and your organization as well.

But individuals don’t have to wait to begin strengthening these leadership characteristics within themselves. If you decide you want to work proactively on developing your leadership qualities and skills, download our action guide & visual summary of this content. And get our tips on how to convince your boss to make an investment in you and your future. We’re here to support you every step of the way on your journey to becoming a better leader!

Ready to Take the Next Step?

After you download the 12 Characteristics of a Good Leader, keep on learning and growing: never miss our exclusive leadership insights and tips — subscribe to our newsletters to get our research-based articles, webinars, resources, and guides delivered straight to your inbox. 

The post 12 Essential Qualities of Effective Leadership appeared first on CCL.

These are the timeless, fundamental skills that are needed by leaders throughout every organization — and they’re important regardless of role, industry, or location.

But the way you address each core leadership skill, and what you need to learn or emphasize around it, will shift and change as you move into higher levels in the organizational hierarchy and encounter new leadership challenges.

So what exactly are these foundational leadership skills? While there may not be a single definitive list of core leadership skills, at CCL, we call the core leadership skills needed in every role and career “The Fundamental 4.”

In the face of unrelenting disruption, effective leadership is what’s needed most. Download our new Talent Development report to learn how investing in talent development today will position your organization to succeed tomorrow.

Get the Report

The Fundamental Leadership Skills Needed in Every Career

The “Fundamental 4” Leadership Skills

At CCL, we see the 4 core leadership skills as:

1. Self-Awareness
2. Communication
3. Influence
4. Learning Agility

1. Self-Awareness.

Simply put, knowing and leading yourself is key to becoming as effective as possible at leading others. But gaining greater self-awareness is anything but simple. It takes intentional effort to assess your natural abilities and development opportunities; determine how to maximize your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses; and recognize your own values, biases, and perspectives.

Taking the time to reflect on these things and consider how you’ve been shaped by your background and social identity builds greater self-awareness. And ultimately, greater awareness about yourself as a person will make you a better leader. If you’re not sure where to start, here are 4 sure-fire ways to boost your self-awareness.

2. Communication.

Communication is one of the most basic, across-the-board leadership skills that all of us need to develop and refine during our careers. “Communicating information and ideas” is consistently rated among the most important leadership competencies for leaders to be successful. Communication is also embedded in a number of other core leadership skills, including “leading employees,” “participative management,” and “building and mending relationships.”

Writing clearly, speaking with clarity, and active listening skills are all part of the core leader competencies related to effective communication. And as you move up the career ladder, communication in leadership roles expands to behaviors such as encouraging discussion, building trust, conveying vision and strategic intent, and pulling people along with you. At every leader level, communication is a critically important skill.

3. Influence.

Developing your influencing and leadership skills helps you to communicate your vision and goals, align the efforts of others, and build commitment from people at all levels.  

Influence can vary greatly at different levels in the organization. Knowing your stakeholders, or audience, is key. Do you need to influence your boss? Your peers? Direct reports? Customers? Each stakeholder has special concerns and issues, so consider the most appropriate ways of influencing others for your particular situation.

Early in your career, or in individual contributor roles, influence is about working effectively with people over whom you have no authority. It requires being able to present logical and compelling arguments and engaging in give-and-take. Later on, or in more senior-level or executive roles, influential leadership skills are focused more on steering long-range objectives, inspiration, and motivation. But throughout your career, influence remains a core leadership skill. Ultimately, influence allows you to get to the business of getting things done and achieving desirable outcomes.

4. Learning Agility.

To develop as leaders and as people, we need to be active, agile learners. Leaders need to be in a mode of constant learning, valuing and seeking out experiences to fuel leadership development, and recognizing when new behaviors, leadership skills, or attitudes are required — and accepting responsibility for developing those.

Learning agility is critical for career longevity, and it involves learning from mistakes, asking insightful questions, and being open to feedback. It also includes learning new skills quickly, being open to learning from hardships and taking advantage of opportunities to learn from heat experiences, and responding well to new situations.

For senior leaders, learning agility is also about inspiring learning in others and creating a learning culture throughout the organization.

Set your development as a leader on the right track by learning and practicing core leader competencies and the 4 foundational leadership skills of self-awareness, communication, influence, and learning agility.

How to Grow the Core Leadership Skills

Developing Foundational Leadership Skills to Prepare for Every Role

If you’re thinking about adding the Fundamental 4 to your leadership skills list, keep in mind that each skill should be continuously improved, or “built on as you go.” To be effective, you must continue to develop, adapt, and strengthen these core leadership skills throughout your career — because the learning never ends. As you gain leadership skills in one area, you’ll find there’s even more to learn and practice in taking on new challenges and larger roles.

And if you think you’ve “skipped over” any of the Fundamental 4 core leadership skills during your career, you won’t be as effective, or fully develop your leadership potential. The good news is that, with concerted effort, you can still develop any skills you missed out on; it’s never too late for soft skill development!

If you can identify any leadership gaps or weaknesses in your leadership journey, you have the potential to learn, grow, and change. With the foundational leadership competencies of self-awareness, communication, influence, and learning agility as the core of your leadership skills development, you can be confident that you’re building capacity for new opportunities and the next level of responsibility — because these 4 are core leadership skills needed for everyone, and every career stage.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Partner with us to help your organization develop the4  fundamental leadership skills. Our leadership fundamentals course: Lead 4 Success®, helps grow core leader competencies for foundational leadership skills development.

The post The Core Leadership Skills You Need in Every Role appeared first on CCL.

Good communication is a fundamental leadership skill and a key characteristic of a good leader. Leaders must be skilled at communicating with others in countless settings and relationships — with individuals and at the organizational level, in communities and groups, and sometimes even on a global scale — in order to achieve results through others.

What Is Leadership Communication?

Leadership communication is how leaders inform and inspire others, and it encompasses verbal, nonverbal, and written messages. From giving instructions and feedback to direct reports, to sharing the vision with employees, to mediating conflict with teams, to providing updates to stakeholders — effective communication in leadership is critical.

Why Is Communication Important for Leaders?

At CCL, we see communication as one of the “fundamental 4” core leadership skills — those timeless skills needed by leaders in any organization, regardless of role, industry, or location.

Leaders must be able to think with clarity, express ideas, and share information with a multitude of audiences. They must also handle the rapid flows of information within the organization and among colleagues, customers, partners, vendors, and others.

Effective leadership communication allows managers to deepen connections, build trust, and drive creativity and innovation through their daily interactions with others. It also helps during change or disruption, as communication is one of 3 critical competencies that our research has found are essential for successful change leadership.

The Connection Between Communication, Conversations & Culture

In organizations, conversations are the foundation upon which the majority of communication happens, as people communicate every day through the formal and informal discussions they have with colleagues and leaders. And the more effective these conversations are, the stronger their organizations become — because better conversations drive better culture.

Core Traits of Successful Leadership Communication

Authenticity

Be honest and sincere. Find your own voice; avoid using corporate-speak or sounding like someone you’re not. Let who you are, where you come from, and what you value come through in your communication. People want, respect, and will follow authentic leadership. Forget about eloquence — worry about being real. Don’t disguise who you are. People will never willingly follow someone they feel is inauthentic.

Accessibility

Visibility is a form of communication. If you want to communicate well, be accessible. Emails and official missives aren’t enough. Be present, visible, and available. Getting “out there” — consistently and predictably — lets others know what kind of leader you are. People need to see and feel who you are to feel connected to the work you want them to do. Find ways to interact with all of your stakeholder groups, even (and especially) if communicating in a crisis.

Clarity & Confidence

Being clear and confident when communicating with your team helps avoid ambiguity, misinterpretation, and confusion. Speak in specifics, use nonverbal communication to augment your words, and speak not just with facts but also with feelings and values. Being able to speak clearly and confidently builds trust and commitment with your team.

Empathy & Respect

Empathy is critical for leadership success, and that extends to communication. Employees want empathy from their leaders and appreciate compassionate leadership. Acknowledge their feelings and pain points when you speak to them, and that will help them feel valued and heard, creating a strong culture of psychological safety.

Trust

Trust isn’t something you can mandate — it grows from consistently demonstrating your commitment to better communication with those you work with. By modeling the values you hope to foster in your team and in your organization, you can build trust. And by building trust, you also encourage those around you to communicate more authentically, contributing to a culture of psychological safety at work. When people feel safe with their team and organization, they’re more open to sharing ideas and taking risks, which can lead to more creativity and more innovation.

Learn how to communicate better, connect more deeply, build trust, and be more satisfied — inside and outside of work — with our book, Better Conversations Every Day.

15 Tips for Effective Leadership Communication

1. Communicate relentlessly.

Get vocal and get involved. Communicate information, thoughts, and ideas clearly — and frequently — in different media. Keep processes open and transparent, and find ways to help smooth the path of communication for your team, employees, or organization. Shed all traces of detachment and arrogance, and take the time to talk to your people.

2. Set clear expectations.

Set the tone. In every relationship, our behavior is guided by a set of rules or social norms — and in a professional setting, these norms tend to go unspoken. Be intentional about establishing team norms at your organization, whether you’re leading a group discussion, mediating a conflict between employees, sending an email to your colleagues, or having a one-on-one conversation with a direct report.

3. Simplify and be direct.

Say what you mean. Be direct. Don’t hide behind complexity or pile on a ton of information. Direct, clear communication can be the most important type of communication. This is even more important when communicating in a virtual setting.

4. Illustrate through stories.

Use stories to bring your ideas to life. When you tell a good story, you help clarify a vision, goal, or objective. Telling good stories creates trust, captures hearts and minds, and serves as a memorable reminder of the message. This is key when communicating the vision. Plus, people find it easier to repeat a story or refer to an image or quote than to talk about a mission statement, strategy document, or project plan. Your ability to create and communicate a compelling, authentic, and bold story will also help you bolster your leadership brand.

5. Be prepared.

Do your homework. Poor communication in the past might mean your audience resists what you have to say today. So start familiarizing yourself with the context around an issue, and any alternative viewpoints and perspectives about it, so you’re ready to handle any concerns or objections before you initiate communication. If you’re met with resistance or presented with a different position, solid preparation will make addressing and overcoming objections much easier and communicate your ideas more effectively.

6. Know your audience.

Communication isn’t just about what you say — it’s also about who is listening. Different stakeholders may have different concerns. The way you approach influencing others will vary from one group to the next, depending on their needs. Tailor your influencing strategy for the particular person and consider their personality, goals, and objectives, as well as their roles and responsibilities. For example, someone who is highly rational may be more easily swayed by a logical appeal than an emotional one.

7. Reinforce intent with body language.

Don’t rely just on words. Showing positive body language like eye contact, nodding your head, and other relaxed nonverbal communication can inspire team members and make them feel more comfortable communicating with you. A simple head nod or smile can go a long way to show you’re paying attention and that you care, and little gestures like this can add up, slowly helping you to build rapport and collaboration and transform your organizational culture, too.

8. Read the room.

Good leadership communication means being flexible. Watch your audience closely for nonverbal signs of engagement or disengagement, confusion or understanding, etc. and adjust your message and style accordingly. You can do this quite literally during in-person meetings, but you can also “read the room” in virtual settings by looking closely at others’ faces on the screen and by explicitly soliciting feedback.

If people are understanding your communication and aligned with your message, you may get lots of eye contact, see nodding heads, observe audience members leaning forward or demonstrating other body language that suggests alignment with your message. If you see listeners leaning back, with arms crossed, and bored or confused expressions on their faces, then you may need to adjust your message or delivery style.

It’s helpful to pause occasionally to let people ask questions and check for understanding, giving your listeners a chance to respond or seek clarification, etc. Stay flexible so you can continually notice how your communications are landing with your audience, and do ongoing adjustments based on the signals they send.

9. Ask good questions.

Leaders ask powerful questions. Ask powerful questions that open the door to learning what others really think and feel. The best leadership questions get right to the heart of things, cut through complicated situations, and identify levers that will really make a difference. Asking non-directive inquiries can also unlock insights — especially key in coaching people, such as direct reports.

10. Listen and encourage input.

Good leaders listen more than they speak. Leadership communication isn’t just about the messages you send, but also the messages you receive. The most effective communicators are also good listeners with strong active listening skills. When you listen well, you gain a clear understanding of another’s perspective and knowledge. So seek out, and then listen to, individuals from all levels of the organization — from the key stakeholders who have a lot of opinions you need to consider, to the new employees who may be reluctant to voice concerns. Allow people to air their concerns. Let team members know their input is valuable, so people feel comfortable speaking up. Pay close, respectful attention to what’s said — and what’s left unsaid. It will show those you lead that you care about both them and the organization.

Also, be okay with silence. Encourage others to offer their ideas and solutions before sharing yours. Do 80% of the listening and 20% of the talking. Demonstrate an interest in — and respect for — your colleagues, as this builds trust and makes the emotional connection that’s so important for effective leadership.

11. Take feedback seriously.

Feedback is a gift. Asking for candid feedback from your team or employees can foster a positive stream of communication, and it helps build trust overall. This tactic can also make your team feel more respected, giving them a chance to have their voices heard. If you take their feedback seriously, you will grow as a leader and enhance your skillset. However, if you ask for and then don’t incorporate their feedback, the opposite is true — it could lead to a loss of trust and alignment. In fact, our research has found that following through with action is critical for leaders to convey they really were listening, as it shows that they truly heard and understood the other person’s concerns.

12. Affirm with actions.

Leaders don’t just talk — they act. Again, if people hear one thing from you but see another, your credibility is damaged. If employees speak up and you seem to be listening, but then do nothing based on what you learned, they won’t feel heard. People need to trust you. Your behavior and actions communicate a world of information — so focus on following up where appropriate and be clear on the messages you are sending with your actions.

13. Initiate the tough, but needed, conversations.

Don’t shy away from conflict. Holding difficult conversations, whether with a customer or direct report, are an inevitable part of any workplace. It’s tempting to ignore conflicts, but effective leaders must be able to address concerns as they arise. Be sure to approach any difficult conversation from a neutral perspective and explore both sides before coming to a conclusion. Work to problem-solve by inventing options that meet each side’s important concerns, and do your best to resolve conflicts through open communication.

14. Involve others before developing a plan of action.

Leadership doesn’t stop when the communication ends. Take whatever you’ve learned in the exchange, synthesize it, and present your plan to the appropriate stakeholders. Generating buy-in and making sure that everyone is on the same page before executing on strategy will be key to achieving organizational goals.

15. Remember your reputation.

Good communicators never compromise their reputations. At times, you may feel you are walking a fine line between being too aggressive and being too relaxed, and as a leader, you need to make sure you find and balance and avoid leaning too heavily in one direction.

To navigate these challenges and bolster your leadership image, consider asking yourself thought-provoking questions like, “When do I stay out of an issue, and when do I get involved?” or “How do I respond when errors are identified?” Make a list of communication concerns you have, and ask a colleague to describe the behaviors they would consider too aggressive or too relaxed — their responses will help gauge how to move forward.

How Poor Leadership Communication Can Cost Your Organization

Workplace communication is a moving target. Leaders must continue to find new ways to make their communications more effective, purposeful, and trustworthy. But, what if communication becomes stagnant, unorganized, and messy?

Leaders may unintentionally derail their own efforts to enhance their communication. They may not communicate enough because of a fear of oversharing, they may think out loud at the wrong moment, or they may have been too honest with a colleague.

These challenges typically arise in high-stress situations, when expectations or deadlines aren’t met, when an opportunity is lost, or when innovation is lacking. It can be frustrating, but it’s worth putting in the extra effort to tackle these conflicts head-on with candid conversations and productive debate, because when a conflict is mismanaged, costs will continue to mount — whether they result in tangible out-of-pocket costs like turnover, or intangible costs like poor morale, decision-making, or broken trust. Learn more about the impact of poor leadership communication in such situations and the costs of conflict incompetence.

How to Evaluate Your Leadership Communication Skills

Strong communication is one of the quickest ways leaders can build trust. Here are some actions that you can take while communicating. As you’re reading them, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 — with a 1 signifying it’s an area that you need to work on, and 5 meaning that you have excelled:

• Avoid mixed messages: ensure that your words and actions are consistent.
• Act in ways that support the values of your organization.
• Go directly to the relevant individual to discuss the situation if having difficulty with another coworker or team member.
• Serve as a sounding board on sensitive issues for others.
• Share your opinions and perspectives, even when they’re different from the majority view.
• Avoid being a “yes” person.
• Keep your focus on the big picture and the shared goals of the organization.
• Accept accountability for your actions and the results of those actions.
• Promote respectful dialogue and productive debate.

Now that you’ve assessed your skills, how high is your score? How well did you do? If you identified any areas that need improvement, begin today by marking the one that you will start with immediately to improve your skills in leadership communication.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Effective communication for leaders is essential. Partner with us to craft a customized learning journey for your team using our research-based modules. Available leadership topics include Authenticity, Communication & Leadership Training, Feedback That Works, Emotional Intelligence, Influence, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety, and more.

Or, build conversational skills across your team to scale a culture of open communication and feedback across your entire organization.

The post Essential Communication Skills for Leaders appeared first on CCL.

Leadership is often described by what a leader does or the capabilities they have. Yet while the skills and behaviors of individual leaders are important, the true meaning of leadership is about what people do together. Said another way, everyone in an organization contributes to leadership.

So, what is leadership, really?

Based on our decades of pioneering research and experience, we define leadership as a social process that enables individuals to work together to achieve results that they could never achieve working alone.

Understanding how leadership works as a social process is important for several reasons:

• This definition of leadership avoids putting the entire weight of leadership on a few individuals — or limiting the leadership potential of others. Each person can discover and build upon their own leadership potential.
• This view of leadership is both realistic and adaptive — because the truth is, leadership doesn’t take place in isolation. It reflects, responds to, and shapes many different relationships, cultures, and systems.
• It’s also practical. When we define leadership as something that happens through the interactions among people with shared work, we have many opportunities to amplify leadership potential. Plus, in a group, a multitude of skills, perspectives, and expertise work together, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Any individual weaknesses are overshadowed by the strengths of others, and the team or group thrives — accomplishing more together than any one individual could ever do alone.

Management vs. Leadership: What’s the Difference?

The terms management and leadership are often used interchangeably, but there are distinct differences, so understanding the definition of leadership vs. management can be helpful. The key difference between them:

• Management is the process of planning and control, while
• Leadership is the process of people working to achieve something together.

Both management and leadership are important for accomplishing goals or making change happen, and depending on your role, you will need to draw on aspects of both to be effective.

What Do Managers Focus On?

Management roles and responsibilities involve planning, organizing, getting things done, and solving problems. Effective managers deploy resources and work through others to gain efficiency, quality, and accomplish goals. The focus is on day-to-day operations and tasks, and ensuring employees meet expectations for what they do and how they do it. A good manager delegates tasks effectively; ensures the team meets any deadlines and targets; manages resources; and addresses conflicts efficiently.

What Do Leaders Focus On?

Leadership roles and responsibilities are broader, and involve influencing, inspiring, and bringing out the best in others. Leaders see the big picture, help others connect the dots, and fill in gaps. Effective leaders motivate and influence teams to work towards achieving a common goal, and invest in the whole — the collective people and systems needed to succeed. They set a clear vision, encourage innovation, and support personal and professional growth in others.

Whether you’re currently leading people and projects, a team or department, or an entire organization, your role will involve aspects of both leadership and management, as both are important. And when facing a new challenge, goal, or situation, remember the definition of leadership as a collective process, and consider what’s most needed in the moment: leadership vs. management.

With that clarity, you can learn or apply the skills, behaviors, and capabilities most likely to solve a problem or support the desired shared outcome — and guide others to play their part, too.

Defining Leadership By Its Outcomes — Direction, Alignment, and Commitment

At CCL, our research distills leadership down to 3 essential elements: direction, alignment, and commitment, or DAC, in our widely recognized Direction – Alignment – Commitment (DAC) model for leadership.

This leadership definition moves beyond a focus on leaders, followers, and shared goals, and instead puts the emphasis on the shared outcomes of leadership. If all 3 elements – direction, alignment, and commitment — are present, then we know that leadership is happening.

The actions, interactions, reactions, and exchanges of multiple people produce DAC together. And while organizational leaders play a vital role in setting the tone and making space for DAC to thrive, everyone is involved in creating DAC.

When you understand how essential direction, alignment, and commitment are for what leadership is, you can see why we define leadership as a social process — not a solo effort.

Our definition of leadership puts focus on what effective leadership does. It recognizes that everyone can learn, grow, and contribute to shared direction, alignment, and commitment. And it creates space for many different leadership styles, individual personalities, and cultures.

But what exactly do we mean when we say that leadership is the result of DAC?

Direction

Agreement Within the Group on Overall Goals

Direction is a shared answer to the question, where are we going? It’s an agreement on what a team or organization wants to achieve together and serves as a guide for setting shared goals.

With a collective sense of clear direction, everyone’s time and energy go where they matter most. People know what to say yes and no to, and where to spend resources. They can see how their individual efforts fit into larger objectives.

Setting direction is an essential part of what leadership is, because it requires much more than just announcing a business target or even articulating a vision; it’s about purpose-driven leadership that creates clarity and inspires and motivates others.

Alignment

Coordinated Work Within the Group

While direction is where we’re going, alignment is how we get there.

With alignment, each person understands their role and how it fits with the work of their colleagues. Overall, there’s a sense of coordination and synchronization. Confusion and miscommunication are reduced. Efficiencies are created, resulting in fewer redundant tasks, duplication of efforts, and multiple checks and cross-checks.

Creating and maintaining alignment can be especially challenging today among remote or hybrid teams, with members in different locations and time zones. It can be frustrating to try to collaborate with others because teammates are in a different place and time of day — leaving people feeling left out, unable to contribute, and confused about their role and what’s going on.

Effective leadership always requires a focus on both relationships and tasks, but that’s particularly true when leading in a hybrid work environment or with remote team members. Intentionally building trust and fostering coordination and interdependence can ultimately create greater alignment.

Commitment

A Feeling of Mutual Responsibility for the Group

Commitment is a willingness to make the success of the collective a personal priority, where individuals know that their own successes are connected to those of others. People can trust that everyone will make the effort needed to ensure the group is successful, with a balance of give and take.

When a culture of resistance or minimal effort is replaced by a sense of “being in it together,” managers don’t need to monitor activities so closely, or follow up many times on the same item. Team members are willing to give a little extra to ensure their group’s success, versus just doing enough to get by. With an increased sense of accountability and a shared ownership mentality, change is supported, shared goals are achieved, and cultural transformation is possible.

But commitment cannot be enforced; it must be fostered. The most effective managers understand that leadership means respecting differences, and seek to understand the experiences of their employees and build belonging at work, creating spaces where people feel their perspectives and contributions are valued.

How a Better Definition of Leadership Can Improve It

A shared view of the importance and meaning of leadership can actually help to improve the quality and consistency of it. With clarity on what leadership means, you can assess what’s going well and what isn’t — and take steps to improve how you work with others and accomplish what matters most.

So now that you know what leadership is and how to recognize when it’s happening, what can you do to improve it?

Fuel the Social Process of Leadership: Start by Diagnosing Leadership Challenges

If progress is stagnant in your organization or team, or in a community effort, think about leadership as an outcome that you want to achieve through direction, alignment, and commitment. This can quickly help you diagnose where you need to focus your attention to regain momentum. Some specific steps to follow are outlined below.

1. Watch for signs that DAC is weak.

How can you diagnose unclear direction, lack of alignment, or low commitment? Here are a few key signs:

• A lack of agreement on priorities or resource allocation
• People feel as if they are being pulled in different directions
• People are stuck, the same things are repeatedly problems or frustrations
• Team members are unclear about how their tasks fit into the larger work of the group
• Deadlines are missed, rework and duplication of effort are common
• Groups or functions compete against each other
• Only the easy things get done, there’s a persistent gap between effort needed and effort given
• People put their own interests first, a sense of “what’s in it for me?” dominates
• Inconsistencies between what people say and what they do

2. Bring in multiple viewpoints.

Go beyond your own perspective to engage your team and learn how others view the current levels of DAC. Hold a candid conversation about the outcomes of leadership in your group, team, or organization to get a more accurate picture of what’s going on and understand the current issues and challenges. Be intentional about first creating psychological safety so that group members feel free to share openly what they think is going well and what’s not.

• Try to gauge whether others agree on what you’re trying to accomplish together. Ask if everybody is clear about how their task fits into the work of the group. Do they think their contributions are valued?
• Have colleagues, partners, or direct reports take our quick and complimentary DAC assessment. Hold one-on-one meetings and focused conversations to share perspectives on what is going well, and where improvement would make a meaningful difference.
• Sometimes, getting everyone’s mind out of the present and into the future is helpful. For instance, if the team was performing better 6 months from now, what would start happening? What would stop?

Based on what you learn, you can identify needed changes.

3. Take simple actions to address issues that emerge.

Every team, project, and situation will involve different leadership challenges, so how you address issues will require different skills, actions, and behaviors.

For example, you may realize that your group has clear direction and strong commitment, but the processes and the systems and the way the organization is set up is chaotic. That means that Alignment is the area that needs the most work, and so the collective effort should focus on improving how work is accomplished. In other situations, it might be low levels of shared Commitment and/or Direction that are the biggest pain points to address.

While there are no quick fixes or single solutions, you can make progress on improving DAC levels with small changes such as these:

• Expand your network. Involve a more diverse group of people as you plan or make decisions, communicate more broadly, and build in connection points with people, groups, or functions whose work or interests are related to yours. Taking a network perspective enables leaders to get more tasks accomplished through influence and the power of their relationships.
• Go beyond surface-level relationships. Try to understand what really motivates your team members, what information each person needs to make sense of the goal, and encourage leadership purpose to help each individual connect the larger objectives to their own work.
• Improve interactions within the group. You might change the frequency or format of meetings or updates, streamline a key process, or consider establishing team norms or setting up a team charter to turn the team’s values into agreed-upon behaviors and operating agreements, if those weren’t in place already.
• Hold candid conversations. Give greater effort to building trust, rapport, and a deeper understanding of the group’s perspectives. Ask for feedback, ideas, and concerns. Hold open discussions about changes that are needed and why, and use active listening skills to learn others’ views.
• Help your team manage priorities and competing demands. Consider more frequent check-ins, clearer accountability structures, and focus on helping to address or remove roadblocks for others, which will help the team make progress and also demonstrates compassionate leadership.

In the face of unrelenting disruption, effective leadership is what’s needed most. Download our new Talent Development report to learn how investing in talent development today will position your organization to succeed tomorrow.

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Investing in Leadership at All Levels

When everybody at an organization understands what leadership is and how to support DAC as part of their role, more leadership happens. The results of more leadership include:

• Increased agreement on group and organizational priorities;
• Clarity on how individual tasks fit into the work of the larger team; and
• Individuals who prioritize the success of the collective.

Implications of This Relational Definition of Leadership

This more relational understanding of the meaning of leadership has important implications for leadership development. As our research has noted, it underscores the importance of not focusing on development solely for individuals in positions of authority or who have been deemed “high-potential,” but rather, the importance of building leadership capacity for the collective — teams, workgroups, and organizations.

But effective leadership across all levels doesn’t come automatically; knowing how to contribute to the leadership outcomes of direction, alignment, and commitment must be learned and practiced. This requires an intentional investment in growing leadership at all levels.

We can begin by honoring the unique starting point of individual leaders, helping them grow their self-awareness and leadership skillsets and mindsets. We can also work to foster an increased understanding of the meaning of leadership within teams and groups — ultimately creating a profound ripple effect across entire organizations and communities.

Amplifying Leadership Potential With Development

Providing the right learning at the right time for all talent — from individual contributors to frontline managers, and from team and cross-functional leaders through senior executives — is the key that unlocks organizational performance, engagement, and retention. Some key steps to amplify leadership potential across your organization:

1. Encourage good leadership and make development accessible.

The most effective leaders consistently show the characteristics of a good leader such as integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, compassion, and resilience. When individuals learn and improve these essential leadership qualities, and more, the social process of leadership becomes smoother and more effective.

But just knowing what good leadership looks like isn’t enough. In our decades of research and hands-on experience, we’ve found that people are more committed and engaged when they have a clear career path, ample professional and personal leadership development opportunities, and the support they need to become the best possible version of themselves. Leadership development prepares individuals to navigate change and builds collective capacity to solve pressing problems.

Unfortunately, access to opportunities for growth and development isn’t always available. Our research on emerging leaders found that 60% of young professionals worldwide feel that access to opportunities for leadership development is inequitable.

Fully supporting emerging leaders can include actions such as working against systemic exclusion from the past and providing more equitable access to opportunities in the present. A variety of leadership programs, courses, and tools can fit together like puzzle pieces to tailor your organization’s large-scale training and retention initiatives and make leadership development more accessible to all.

2. Grow teams together.

When building high-performing teams, remember to focus on more than just star power. Of course, having the right people with the right leadership capabilities is important, and each person should know why they’re on the team. That’s key. But that’s just one of the 4 components of team effectiveness, and the only one that considers individual people, or the level of talent and ability within a team. As the other 3 aspects of our research framework on team effectiveness emphasize, an effective team supports direction, alignment, and commitment, reflecting that what leadership is about, really, is people working together to produce collective results.

And instead of only having individuals move through leadership development independently, picture the power of teams growing together. By establishing strong direction, alignment, and commitment, team members will all work together more seamlessly, improve outputs, and expand potential for impact.

3. Scale for organization-wide impact.

Imagine the impact that would result in your organization if there was a shared understanding of the definition of leadership, and a leadership vision, language, and behaviors were all linked to critical business needs. What if direction, alignment, and commitment were strong and vibrant, rather than an unfamiliar way to define leadership?

By implementing and scaling leadership development enterprise-wide, organizations broaden access to learning, provide equitable access to opportunities for growth and development, create new capabilities across the enterprise, and foster the social processes needed for effective leadership. In fact, organizational investments in leadership development have been repeatedly shown to:

• Improve bottom-line financial performance. Superior human capital management is an extremely powerful predictor of an organization’s ability to outperform its competition.
• Attract and retain talent, strengthening the leadership pipeline. As a result, employee retention is 20 times greater at companies with a focus on leadership development.
• Drive strategy execution and facilitate organizational alignment. Done right, leadership development unquestionably delivers impact and fosters alignment.
• Increase organizational agility and change readiness. When facing an unpredictable business environment, 86% of companies with strategic leadership development programs are able to respond rapidly, compared with 52% of companies with less mature leadership programs.

While it can be a challenge to deliver high-impact development opportunities at all leader levels and to large populations, organizations can still enjoy the many benefits of leadership development by supplementing their own in-house training resources and teams with content and support from outside experts and proven leadership development providers.

4. Create a ripple effect in society.

As individuals, teams, and organizations come to understand the meaning of leadership and how to create greater direction, alignment, and commitment, their leadership potential is expanded, and the impact can ripple outward — making a difference not only in their lives, but also in the lives they touch.

That’s why we say that systemic societal or community problems cannot be solved by individuals alone. Given their size and complexity, confronting so-called “wicked problems” takes many people working together to uncover the roots of the issues and find sustainable solutions.

This reality truly underscores that when we embrace a more relational and collective definition of leadership, we open up the possibility of transformational change for everyone — from individuals and teams to entire organizations, and even larger communities and society.

What Does Leadership Mean to You?

Now that you know the research-based definition of leadership involves the outcomes of direction, alignment, and commitment, and that DAC enables people to achieve more together than they ever could working alone, you can decide what effective leadership means to you and the mission and goals of your organization, group, or community.

When you see areas of strength and what’s holding you back, you can take targeted and intentional action to develop your capacity to lead — and help others do the same. The result? More people reaching their potential, making faster progress, and finding better solutions — together.

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Frequently Asked Questions About the Meaning of Leadership

The post What Is Leadership? appeared first on CCL.

Who can forget the countless surveys that indicated a significant decline in confidence in leadership bench strength, or the reports that the leadership gap is a top concern among talent management professionals and CEOs alike?

Common causes of the leadership gap contributing to a leadership shortage include generational shifts in the workforce due to the retirement of many Baby Boomers, changes in the nature of work itself, recruiting wars for high-potential talent, and poor organizational practices identifying, selecting, and developing talent.

Yet companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and educational organizations need leaders who can effectively navigate complex and changing situations in the future.

To address the leadership gap, organizations need to be asking “Who do we have?” and “What do they need to do?” as well as “Are they equipped to do it?”

What Is the Leadership Gap?

Simply put, the leadership gap is how aligned current leadership is with what’s thought to be important for leadership effectiveness in the future.

And current research shows that current leaders aren’t adequately prepared for the future. This finding is consistent across countries, organizations, and levels in the organization.

At CCL, we have a long history of studying the leadership gap. More than 15 years ago, we started to document the gap between the readiness of future organizational leaders and their current leadership skills. Our research has found that the leadership gap persists, and that little progress has been made in addressing it.

We designed a research project to understand which leadership skills are critical for success, now and in the future; how strong current leaders are in these critical skills; and how aligned today’s leadership is with what will be the most important skills in the future. And we found that crucial leadership skills in organizations are insufficient for meeting current and future needs.

Other academics and leadership development organizations have documented similar shortcomings. Below we’ll share more about what the leadership gap is and what the challenges are with closing it.

What Causes a Leadership Gap?

A leadership gap can be caused by either:

• A lack of mastery of the required competencies, or
• A lack of focus on necessary skills.

The first is a matter of degree; the second is a matter of substance. But either can be a problem, in both the short and long term. Organizations will want to address this coming leadership gap in their talent development.

Our study found that today’s leadership capacity is insufficient to meet future leadership requirements. Many organizations have a list of high-priority leadership competencies for their future leaders; our research shows the limitations of current skills in many of these areas and flags areas of particular concern. The data from our study indicates that most organizations today are experiencing a leadership deficit now, and can expect a leadership gap in the future.

We’ve identified 9 specific leadership competencies that are weak or missing in terms of future leadership needs and current skills:

1. Managing change
2. Inspiring commitment
3. Leading employees
4. Taking initiative
5. Building collaborative relationships
6. Having a strategic perspective
7. Knowing strategic planning
8. Embracing participative management
9. Being a quick learner

Notably, the leadership gap appears most problematic in high-priority, high-stakes areas. Other areas where there’s a significant gap between the needed and existing skill levels were employee development and self-awareness.

Barriers to Bridging the Leadership Gap

To be sure, companies, government agencies, and nonprofits want their future leaders to be prepared for the future. But internal and external forces are often blocking or slowing down leader development efforts, creating the leadership gap. Those include:

• Outdated ideas about leadership. For many leaders and employees, the term “leader” still suggests an individual whose role is to provide all the answers. However, we know the most effective leaders are those who are skilled at influencing, collaborating, and helping a team or organization discover the answers through coaching conversations. Our research has also found that some individuals view leadership roles as requiring trade-offs with other priorities, such as family. Those perceptions — whether true or not — are likely dissuading many high-potential employees from pursuing leadership development and leadership roles.
• Digital disruption. The pace of technological innovation over the last generation has reshaped markets, created new industries, and transformed the way we work. But many organizations and their workers are struggling. Training and adoption of new technologies — such as those required for remote working and distributed teams — hasn’t kept up. One study a few years ago found that more than 60% of organizations surveyed provided no training for virtual teams or virtual team leaders on how to deal with the challenges of collaborating virtually. And opportunities such as analytics and the promise of Big Data have many organizations scrambling to understand what talent and skills they’ll need to fill their leadership pipeline. One way to mitigate this challenge may be by setting up reverse mentoring arrangements.
• Flatter organizations and more dynamic environments. In our faster-moving economy, rigid hierarchical organizational charts have given way to flatter, more agile structures. While this helps companies respond faster to customer needs and changing markets, it has also eliminated the traditional “move up the ladder” leadership development path. Now lateral movement — perhaps to a different geographic or functional area — is required for individuals who want to become leaders. Mapping out these lateral-and-upward career paths is tough for individuals and organizations.
• Intense competition for top talent and higher turnover. The days of a 30- or 40-year career with a single organization are long gone. Organizations find themselves focused on competing with other organizations to attract and retain high-potential talent. In addition, as more workers reach retirement age, organizations may be challenged to identify new potential leaders and build a leadership pipeline.
• Misaligned systems for measuring and rewarding work performance. Old ways of evaluating and rewarding employees don’t make much sense when career growth requires lateral movement — and employees may switch from one employer to another every few years. Furthermore, organizations may be investing in outdated practices that contribute to the leadership gap and also fail to align with organizational goals and strategies. Organizations need to become aware of what truly engages and motivates employees and start bridging their leadership gap with the 9 key leadership competencies.

In the face of unrelenting disruption, effective leadership is what’s needed most. Download our new Talent Development report to learn how investing in talent development today will position your organization to succeed tomorrow.

Get the Report

What Can Be Done About the Leadership Gap?

How Organizations Can Take Action on It Today

To avoid a discrepancy between areas of strength and areas of need, our white paper offers 5 steps that organizations can take to help bridge the leadership gap between current leadership talent and future leadership needs:

1. Perform a needs assessment.

Identify the capabilities that managers need now and in the future to execute and sustain the organization’s strategy. Use your people data to determine organizational needs and understand leadership gaps.

2. Create a leadership strategy.

A clear understanding of the leadership behaviors and business goals allows executives to develop a leadership strategy. In turn, organizational development initiatives can be aligned with operational needs.

3. Develop clear, specific goals and strategies for individual leadership development.

Assess managers’ strengths and weaknesses as leaders against the core competencies identified in the needs assessment. You can use 360-degree leadership assessment tools to do help evaluate individuals’ strengths and development needs. Be sure to factor in feedback, coaching, and assessment towards addressing these development needs and to ensure goal attainment.

4. Create systems.

When important competencies are found to be weak spots, targeted development initiatives can be put into place. Evaluating your managers’ opinions about development needs can help you create a plan for developing leadership talent and closing the leadership gap. On the individual and tactical level, managers need to align the development experiences of managers with organizational objectives. Make sure that you don’t overlook vertical development when doing this.

5. Evaluate.

Build in systems for measuring how these efforts are paying off across the organization. Evaluating the impact of leadership development is a critical final step in order to understand what additional resources are needed and key metrics to track. Leadership analytics and evaluation services can help you determine ROI.

A Closing Word on Addressing the Leadership Gap

At CCL, we have developed a Leadership Gap Indicator that’s specifically designed to help companies examine their own data and better understand particular strengths, challenges, current leadership deficits, and anticipated future leadership gaps specific to their organization. This information can help senior management facilitate conversations about the identification, development, and retention of key leadership talent.

The sooner organizations understand the reality of their leadership gap, the quicker they can move to adapt by refocusing leadership development efforts and rethinking recruitment priorities.

To increase leadership capacity, strengthen the future leadership pipeline, and close the leadership gap, organizations need to take both a strategic and a tactical approach.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Future-proofing your organization’s talent pipeline requires you to first understand where a leadership gap currently exists. We’re ready to help you to close the gap and build critical leadership skills and competencies that are right for your organization’s unique context and culture. Partner with us to unlock the power of your people data, diagnose your current state, and design a customized leadership development solution that will start closing your leadership gap today.

The post The Leadership Gap: How to Fix What Your Organization Lacks appeared first on CCL.