It’s true, women make great leaders. They have effective communication skills, a high level of emotional intelligence, they’re nurturers by nature, and they just seem to be more approachable than their male counterparts.
But still, you don’t see many women in leadership roles, especially at the executive level. According to a study from the Brandon Hall Group, a mere 17 per cent of organizations have female CEOs, and that number is about the same as it was back in 2015.
That being said, I wanted to come up with a list of the most vital leadership skills women are going to need so more of us can start filling those positions in 2022.
These skills will benefit anyone in a leadership role, regardless of gender, but we’re going to be looking at this from a more female perspective and focusing on things that women in leadership positions might need to work on.
If your dream is to become a woman executive, or you’re a female supervisor or manager who feels like they need to brush up on some of the leadership skills women need, then keep reading!
Take note: If you like this article, you’re bound to enjoy my best-selling book on communication. You can find it here: REFRAME: How To Change Your Conversations To Resolve Those Messy Conflicts.
Leadership Skills Women Need to Succeed
Empathy
While women do tend to be more empathetic, this is something I cannot stress enough.
A big part of being successful in any leadership position is being able to relate to the experiences, struggles, and concerns of the people you’re overseeing.
Not only does this make it easier for you to perform your role as a manager, supervisor, or executive, but it will also help you to develop strong, genuine, meaningful relationships with those you’re managing and as a result, you will gain more respect from those who look up to you.
Unfortunately, some women are under the impression that in order to gain respect and be taken seriously, they need to act more like men, by being aggressive or inflexible. But the truth is whether you’re a man or a woman, these qualities are unlikely to bring success in a leadership role.
I mean, if you come off as intimidating, hostile, and rigid, the people you’re working with are more likely to make excuses, hide things from you, avoid interacting with you, and you’re probably not going to get much respect. These kinds of tendencies are going to make your job much more difficult.
So, make sure you do your absolute best to put yourself in your coworkers’ shoes and be as compassionate as you can.
Mentorship
Speaking of strong relationships, one of the best ways to bond with coworkers is to be a solid mentor.
At the very least, people should feel comfortable coming to you for advice, guidance, or reassurance, and this is going to benefit both them and you because it fosters these kinds of mutually beneficial relationships.
When your colleagues feel they can confide in you, you’ll end up building more authentic relationships with them, and as a leader, this puts you in a much better position.
Acting as a mentor to your colleagues will allow you to be seen as more credible and trustworthy, develop your coaching skills, increase productivity, reduce turnover, and encourage professional development.
You see, when people think of their bosses as cold, callous, slave drivers, they’re going to care less about the company they work for, which means they’re more likely to do the bare minimum, less likely to go above and beyond, and more likely to leave.
But when people look up to and respect their bosses, it decreases their stress level, makes them inspired to learn, and more excited about the growth of the company. All these things are good for any business’ bottom line, and as a leader, it makes you more valuable.
Therefore, if you want to be successful in a leadership position or you’re looking to become a woman executive, you should take advantage of every opportunity you have to mentor your colleagues.
Trustworthiness
Showing empathy and creating a climate where coworkers feel comfortable confiding in you will certainly stimulate trust.
In fact, research from Harvard Business School showed that leaders who project warmth are more effective than those who project toughness, and that’s because employees tend to feel greater trust with people who are kind.
For that reason, it’s definitely important for leaders to be caring, compassionate, welcoming, and approachable. But it can take a lot more than that to gain people’s trust.
Some of the ways you can exude trustworthiness include:
- Communicating clearly
- Being reliable and responsive
- Honouring your commitments
- Making yourself as accessible as possible
- Maintaining openness and honesty with coworkers
- Taking responsibility for your mistakes and not passing the buck
So, if you’re making promises and then not following through on them, blaming others for your own shortcomings, taking weeks to respond to emails, or spending all day hiding in your office, you’re going to look like someone who’s immature, disingenuous, unreliable, and inaccessible, and those things are not going to help you gain people’s trust.
We all know what makes someone appear less trustworthy, and people tend to be pretty intuitive about these things, so you should always make a point of thinking about how your actions are going to be perceived and then act accordingly.
This brings me to my next point.
Emotional Intelligence
As I said above, women tend to have greater emotional intelligence than men, but you’ve got to appreciate how important this is, especially when you’re in a leadership position.
Emotional intelligence refers to one’s ability to express emotions in an effective manner while maintaining control of those emotions and having self-awareness. It also implies being judicious and thoughtful when handling interpersonal relationships.
In order to make effective use of emotional intelligence in a leadership position, you have to:
- Manage Your Emotions – You can’t be going around acting on impulse and having knee-jerk reactions to everything. You shouldn’t suppress your emotions, but you also have to be able to observe them and consciously decide how you’re going to react to them.
- Consider Your Colleagues – This follows directly from the last point because you’re not going to be able to understand how your behaviour will affect those around you without understanding your own emotions first. At any rate, you have to maintain self-awareness and genuinely consider how the things you do can affect your coworkers.
- Nurture Your Relationships – The same qualities that are going to make people trust you are going to allow you to manage your relationships with colleagues. In addition to all the behaviours that inspire trust listed above, you have to try to avoid hurting people’s feelings, consider the dynamics of your team, and deal with conflicts as they arise, instead of letting them fester.
Confidence
There’s no doubt about it – all great leaders have to be confident. But that confidence shouldn’t come at the expense of all the other skills I’ve discussed.
It’s one thing to have confidence in your abilities as a leader, have faith in your decision-making skills, and carry yourself with distinction. But being arrogant, insensitive, and pigheaded is another thing, and it’s something that’s going to hinder your abilities as a leader.
Luckily, if you follow the advice above, and do your best to implement these skills into the way you lead, you should have much greater confidence because, among many other things, you’ll be able to:
- Develop coaching and mentorship skills
- Gain greater loyalty from your colleagues
- Learn how to better manage your emotions
- Encourage coworkers to work harder and learn more
- Decrease the stress level of the people you’re managing
- Position yourself as more reliable, responsive, and trustworthy
- Avoid the costs and inconveniences associated with high turnover
- Nurture and build more meaningful, authentic relationships with your coworkers
So, as I said before, being confident doesn’t mean you have to be a narcissist. As a leader, you should always be confident in your abilities, but you can do it without being completely obnoxious.
In any case, if you make a concerted effort to work on these vital leadership skills, you should have even greater confidence than before, and every reason to believe in yourself.
If you’re a woman in a leadership position who’s looking for more guidance on how to become better at what you do, please reach out. I’m more than happy to schedule a free discovery call and help you to become a more effective leader.