Why develop strong leadership skills?
Leadership is often referred to as a driver of performance for organizations. This is true. Equally important is that developing leadership skills can deeply impact a person’s life and career, extending far beyond just their professional role.
Here's why more and more workers are choosing to embark on this leadership journey, and fuel both personal and professional growth:
Take control of your career path
Developing your leadership skills means moving away from being a doer to lean toward being an effective leader! This allows you to regain control of your career by no longer depending solely on promotions or formal recognition.
A great leader naturally attracts opportunities, inspires confidence, and is often called upon for strategic projects. In other words, you aren't given more responsibilities because you ask for them but because your attitude justifies it.
Gain confidence and clarity
Leadership isn't about doing everything; it's about knowing yourself – understanding your values and intentions and embodying them consistently. This mindset is an inner compass enabling you to move forward with confidence, even in uncertainty.
Cultivating self-knowledge strengthens emotional stability and the ability to set healthy boundaries and make decisions without constantly seeking validation from team members.
Build genuine, strong relationships
Nurturing your skills as a leader enriches your relationships with team members because effective leadership is based on listening, authenticity, and respect. It helps establish trust in an environment that is free of control or competition.
And it doesn't stop at the office. The interpersonal skills developed through corporate leadership – empathy, nonviolent communication, and conflict management – can be applied in personal, family, and social spheres.
Find purpose and satisfaction through action
Many managers experience a disconnect. They manage, organize, and make decisions without genuinely feeling satisfied or inspired. Developing their leadership skills allows them to reconnect with what drives them, find the link between their values and actions, and restore purpose in their daily work. By cultivating self-awareness, they adopt a more conscious, aligned, and driven attitude.
7 Effective ways for developing leadership skills
1. Adopt a growth mindset
Leadership doesn't begin with a title but with a decision to continually evolve. The idea is to swap a static "I know" stance for a dynamic "I'm learning" stance, that is being a leader-as-learner. It begins with honest introspection to develop greater self-awareness and to determine which behaviors and habits to adjust, strengthen, or abandon.
The "Start, Stop, Continue" method is a good way to achieve this. It involves asking yourself three simple questions every week to take stock:
- What should I stop doing to be a better leader?
- What should I start doing right now?
- What's working well, and should I continue to do it with intention?
Developing effective leadership means adopting a growth mindset, that is believing in your ability to move forward through effort and experimentation.
2. Use everyday like a training opportunity
Developing your leadership skills doesn't necessarily require professional development courses or highly important projects. It is shaped by the small, ordinary situations we experience every day without always paying attention.
Each day brings its share of moments where you can practice leadership skills – a meeting that doesn't go as planned, a colleague in difficulty, a disagreement with a colleague, a last-minute change, etc. These situations, far from trivial, are opportunities for practicing.
Learn to identify key moments
Pay attention to situations that trigger your reaction (frustration, discomfort, annoyance, hesitation, etc.). These are the best contexts to test your leadership stance, refine your reactions, or adjust your communication skills.
Act with clarity, consistency, and courage
- Clarity: Be explicit in your expectations, instructions, and feedback. A clear leader reduces misunderstandings and reassures their team members.
- Consistency: Align your words with your actions. Nothing destroys credibility more than a gap between what you say and what you do.
- Courage: Dare to say what needs to be said, even if it's uncomfortable. Take a stand or confront an uncomfortable situation rather than avoiding it.
These simple gestures, repeated consistently, give substance to your leadership position.
Assess your leadership regularly
At the end of your work day, take a few minutes to ask yourself:
- What did I do well as a leader?
- What situation could I have handled differently?
- What behavior do I want to adopt next time?
This retrospective is essential to transform your actions into lasting learnings.
3. Develop more assertive communication skills through active listening
In the collective imagination, leadership is often associated with speaking, whether it’s for motivating, convincing, or expressing yourself with impact. However, what makes a lasting difference is the ability to listen.
More than just nodding your head while you wait for your turn to speak, active listening is about making yourself fully available to understand what the other person is saying – and what they aren't saying.
- Practice reflective listening: Reformulate what you heard in your own words to confirm understanding, for example: "If I understand correctly, what bothers you is..." This makes the other person feel understood and prevents misunderstandings.
- Eliminate interruptions and judgments: The human brain wants to respond, correct, or analyze too quickly. Resist this impulse. Leave room for silences, let the other person finish their sentences, and be curious instead of rushed.
Listening is a fundamental aspect of communication, especially in situations of transformation, conflict, or doubt. It’s also a critical leadership skill that builds trust and credibility over time, as employees feel valued, recognized, and respected.
Ultimately, someone who actively listens naturally becomes a reference because they show they are able to understand, connect, and react appropriately. That’s what makes a better leader.
4. Refine your presence
Even before you say a word, your body speaks for you – often without even realizing it – and team members are very sensitive to such body language. How you enter a room, look at your interlocutor, greet them, sit in a meeting, etc. This non verbal communication builds (or weakens) your presence as a leader.
A shifty gaze can be perceived as a lack of sincerity or confidence. Abrupt or uncoordinated gestures betray stress or nervousness. A monotonous or quavering voice can weaken a strong message.
Use non verbal communication to strengthen your presence; it strongly influences how others perceive you:
- Pay attention to your gaze: Maintaining natural eye contact (neither shifty nor fixed) is essential. This shows that you are present, attentive, and confident.
- Adopt a stable and grounded posture: Stand straight, without tension, with your feet firmly planted on the ground. This immediately gives an impression of calm and solidity, even in sensitive situations.
- Breathe slowly, especially under pressure: Controlled breathing influences your voice, rhythm, and mental clarity. When stressed, pause to breathe. This will help you refocus and avoid quick reactions.
- Use silence wisely: Many leaders fear silence and want to fill it immediately. However, a well-placed silence can reinforce your message or give your interlocutor time to react.
A strong, impactful presence is based on one simple thing – being fully in the moment. Not thinking about your next meeting, your schedule, or the answer you're going to give, but being fully involved in what's happening here and now. This sincere attention can be felt by team members, and it inspires respect and commitment.
5. Learn to ask the right questions
Successful leaders aren't those who have all the answers but those who know how to ask the right questions at the right time. This skill profoundly transforms team dynamics.
When a manager gives an immediate answer, such a quick move often cuts the other person's train of thoughts. They also become the sole resource for finding solutions, which can hinder creativity and accountability.
However, when asking a question:
- You show you trust team members to think and find a solution on their own.
- You foster engagement because everyone feels motivated when their ideas are requested and considered.
- You get to know your team members better by understanding their reasoning, challenges, and motivations.
Examples of valuable questions to incorporate into your daily routine:
- "What do you suggest?": To encourage initiative instead of responding to a request for instruction.
- "What's blocking you right now?": To help identify an obstacle rather than responding intuitively.
- "What if we did things differently? What would that mean?": To stimulate creativity in a frozen situation.
- "If you were in my shoes, what would you do?": To call on judgment and perspective.
- "What can we learn from what just happened?": To transform a mistake or failure into a collective learning experience.
Asking questions doesn't mean shirking your responsibilities as a decision-maker. Influential leaders guide, frame, and lead while allowing their team members to think, suggest ideas, and find solutions. This attitude says: "I trust you to think, be creative, and learn. I'm not here to do things for you but to help you grow."
A good manager then becomes a coach, helping people grow and elevating them rather than assisting them.
6. Develop a discipline for continuous learning
Leadership skills require training and discipline. Create a learning routine that aligns with your professional development objectives. It's also a powerful way to sharpen your critical thinking skills – a core leadership asset that helps you navigate ambiguity and make better, more thoughtful decisions.
- Keep a journal: Even if it’s brief, a journal is an excellent way to perform regular self reflection and track progress. It provides a space to adjust your posture over time. For example, you could write down a learning experience, a mistake, or something that made you proud, each week.
- Read less, but read better: You don't need to read an entire management book every month to improve your leadership potential. Simply taking a few minutes to read an article, listen to a podcast, revisit a key concept, and search ways to apply it can make a big difference.
- Progress at your own pace: There's no need to set unrealistic goals. It's better to establish simple but regular rituals, such as a 10-minute weekly review on Friday afternoon or specific leadership skills to test each month. Regularly practicing doesn’t just enhance skills – it helps shape a more conscious, consistent, and effective leadership style aligned with your values and goals.
7. Expose yourself to uncomfortable situations
This is often the most challenging way to growth but also the most formative. To strengthen your leadership skills, you sometimes must stop waiting until you're "ready" and deliberately choose to step outside your comfort zone.
It's through discomfort that you’ll learn the most about yourself – your limits, your defense mechanisms, and your untapped resources. Effective leadership development begins where automatic reflexes end.
- Dare to confront inappropriate behavior instead of avoiding it.
- Speak up in a meeting where you usually stay in the background.
- Ask for honest feedback, even from critical or distant people.
- Admit a mistake to your team without justifying yourself. This shows you choose responsibility over perfection.
These situations may seem small, but they require courage. Facing them is a powerful way to develop emotional intelligence and deepen your capacity for calm, constructive leadership.
Transforming your leadership one skill at a time
Developing your leadership skills demands constant and rigorous work. Though it might be a discreet endeavor, often invisible to others, it is also profoundly transformative. By focusing on observation, intention, and consistency, everyone can progress at their own pace without depending on a specific program or context.
The seven practices discussed here are neither academic nor inaccessible; they can be integrated quite easily into your daily life, into what you already do – but with a fresh perspective.
Start where you are. Small but continuous adjustments will profoundly redefine the way you exercise your leadership.
