Leadership development consultants Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman have published the results of a study they conducted on the skills that leaders need to succeed. They asked more than 330,000 bosses, peers, and subordinates to rank the top four competencies from a list of 16 key leadership skills.
Upon completion of their study, they determined that there are 10 key skills that are the most important for a person's success.
1. Inspires and Motivates Others:
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
2. Displays High Integrity and Honesty:
"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
3. Solves Problems and Analyzes Issues:
"Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership." - Colin Powell
4. Results Driven:
"Most businesses think that product is the most important thing, but without great leadership, mission and a team that deliver results at a high level, even the best product." - Robert Kiyosaki
5. Powerful Communicator:
"Even in a crowded room, likable leaders make people feel like they're having a one-on-one conversation, as if they're the only person in the room that matters. And, for that moment, they are. Likable leaders communicate on a very personal, emotional level." - Travis Bradberry
6. Relationship Builder:
"People are the core of every business. Businesses are based on relationships, and relationships are based on people." - Marcus Lemonis
7. Professional Expertise:
"No man has a right to expect to succeed in life unless he understands his business, and nobody can understand his business thoroughly unless he learns it by personal application and experience." - P. T. Barnum
8. Strategic Perspective:
"It's important to have a really clear strategy so when you are in business, you only have to make micro-strategy changes." - Alexa Von Tobel
9. Develop Others:
"Managers develop organisations; leaders develop people." - Robin S. Sharma
10. Innovator:
"A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term." - Robert Reich
