The Leadership Skills You Need to Get Ahead (and How You Can Get Them for Yourself)

Whether you realize it or not, most of us strive to become leaders. We want to do something great, be respected by our peers, make more money and acquire more responsibility. Overall, we want to make a difference at our job.

But most of us simply don’t know the proper way to gain that heightened respect, confidence and admiration from our colleagues.

In reality, there is no simple answer to leadership. It takes devotion, time and patience. Most importantly, it takes knowledge.

Defining the Traits of Leadership

Without a firm understanding of what makes someone more influential, you can’t begin to alter your own beliefs and practices accordingly. Once you’re aware of the traits that will make you more authoritative, you can formulate a plan to improve on the areas you think are lacking.

Below, you’ll find a list of traits that our sales and marketing headhunters look for in leaders, along with some exercises that will help you develop these traits in yourself and enhance your influence and responsibility at work.

1. Strength

Begin to carry yourself with poise and confidence. People are drawn to confidence and shy away from nervousness, lack of authenticity and insecurity.

How you feel about yourself will dictate your ability to lead and command authority. Essentially, if you don’t feel you’re important and deserving, don’t expect your coworkers to think you are.

If you’ve come across as anxious and unassertive with your coworkers in the past, don’t focus on these shortcomings. Your coworkers, like anyone else, will have a short memory, and so should you. From now on, think of the prior experiences as a learning tool rather than a future forecaster.

Here are some exercises to increase your self-confidence and perceived strength:

Challenge the negative beliefs you have about yourself. Instead of focusing all your energy on what you don’t like about you, give equal weight to all your positive qualities.

Focus on past successes rather than failures. Don’t mull over what you’ve done incorrectly. It’s more productive to think about all the things you’ve done right in the past. Reinforce these thoughts repeatedly.

Stop needing to be right. Understand there is nothing shameful about past work mistakes.

Stop looking to others for acceptance and happiness. Realize that you don’t need anyone’s approval for your own self-confidence.

Let go of any anger you’re holding on to. Anger and resentment will prove a significant barrier to your becoming a leader at work.

2. Positive Energy

Leaders show positive energy and optimism, showering their people with a can-do attitude. This outlook draws coworkers to them and paves the way for influence, respect and admiration from others.

In terms of leadership, positive energy has a multitude of benefits and is nothing short of crucial. When you’re positive, you think in terms of solutions, not problems; you inspire risk-taking, tend to be more resilient and think more clearly. Moreover, you’re more assertive, and your candor allows for quicker, more open communication among the other employees. This is the foundation of strong leadership.

3. Passion

Being passionate about your job means possessing a heartfelt, deep and authentic excitement about your work. This excitement is infectious and naturally will draw others to your way of thinking.

People follow positivity, effectiveness, intelligence and resiliency. (Tweet this thought.) All of which are byproducts of loving what you do. Until you learn to love work, you can’t hope to display the necessary positive-energy leadership requires.

Either proactively search for the perfect employment or train yourself to become more passionate in your current job. Regardless, make a firm decision to stay or leave and then follow through with it. Them try these exercises to increase your passion:

Up your performance. Leaders do everything possible to increase the effectiveness of their work. They put in the extra time and sincerely enjoy what they do, partly because others admire their efforts and partly because they find satisfaction in a job well done.

Think about what’s going right rather than obsessing about your problems. Understand that no job is going to be perfect and create a reality that’s more upbeat and success-focused.

Stop focusing on what people “owe” you and begin focusing on what you can do to stand out.

4. Selflessness

True leaders are selfless. They are more interested in group achievements than chasing their own goals.

By consistently pouring out encouragement, caring and recognition, you’ll find your coworkers will become more drawn to you. Regardless of whether or not you’re in a management position, take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who earned it.

In the End

Most significant things at work and in life require work, study and, most importantly, practice. Leadership is no different. Understand that no one is born a leader. Rather, they decide to mold themselves into one. So…