Seven leadership skills most managers lack

Perspective-taking

A good manager can take another person’s perspective, whether the other person is a customer, the manager’s boss, or an employee on the manager’s team. Strong managers can see the world through someone else’s eyes. Unless managers talk through situations and gain perspective on them, they will not easily grow this skill on their own.

Allowing

The skill of allowing is the ability not to react in the moment when you hear bad or startling news, but to keep breathing and give the situation time to unfold. Too many new and even experienced managers freak out whenever they hear something they don’t like. That is not a trait that strong leaders possess.

Real leaders allow people to be who they are, and they allow all the good things and bad things that happen in any workplace to happen because they know that they and their teammates can solve any problem if they keep their cool and resist the urge to place blame.

Intellectual curiosity

Curiosity is one of the most important skills for a leader to cultivate. Curiosity requires us to ask questions. Instead of saying, ‘That’s not the policy’ or ‘I hate that idea’ or ‘That’s not your decision to make!’ a strong leader will say, ‘Tell me more. I want to understand your thought process!’

Critical thinking

Critical thinking means thinking beyond what we’ve been taught. It means looking at situations from all angles. We don’t teach kids much about critical thinking in school — we test them to see whether they’ve memorised a bunch of useless information that we’ve pumped into their heads instead. Critical thinking is important for everyone, and it’s especially important for people who are put in charge of teams!

Connecting the dots

Connecting the dots means working out problems in time and space. Chess players connect the dots better than most of us when they plan their possible moves three, four and five steps ahead. We all need to connect the dots at work, rather than seeing issues and problems as equations to solve. 

Humility

It is tempting as a manger to pick up the hammer and exert your authority whenever something goes wrong at work, or when you just want things to go your way. Strong managers resist the urge to use force and power to get things done. They are humble. They don’t believe that they have all the answers or that they are smarter than the employees on their teams.

“Coaching Skills

Coaching is not the same as supervision. Coaching doesn’t involve telling employees what they need to start doing and stop doing. Coaching is all about listening and empathising. Strong managers focus on the coaching side of their job more than the giving-orders part.