Leaders Are Made Not Born
Learn the three steps to becoming to be a leader
Are leaders born or made? Can anyone become a leader?
If they want to, anyone can learn leadership skills. So that’s a resounding ‘YES’ from me.
Not everyone wants to manage people or deal with leadership challenges, and that’s OK. It would be a dull world if we all wanted to learn to be leaders.
““Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” These immortal words come from Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi”— Are Leaders Born or Made, Colin Baker, Reviewed by Hannah L. Miller, https://leaders.com
I’ve known many talented, intelligent people who do not want to manage others and are not suited to it. They contribute far better when working alone.
But for those who aspire to be a leader, it’s an easy three-step process:
- Discover what skills are required to become a leader
- Learn step-by-step processes for each leadership skill
- Practice until you are a competent leader
Here is your not-so-secret formula for learning to lead. Read on if you dare ;-)
Step One — Discover
To become a leader, you must know what leadership skills are required.
This part is easy because we have many resources to consult. Google, ChatGPT, and leadership qualifications soon provide us with a list.
I typed this into ChatGPT:
“Give me a list of leadership skills”
ChatGPT responded with a list of fifteen skills, but we’ll stick with the first five for brevity:
Communication: The ability to convey information, ideas, and directives clearly and effectively to team members, stakeholders, and peers.
Emotional Intelligence: Understanding and managing emotions, both your own and those of others, to handle interpersonal relationships effectively.
Visionary Thinking: Creating and communicating a compelling vision for the future, setting goals and objectives for the team or organization.
Decision-Making: Making informed and timely decisions, considering various perspectives, and taking responsibility for the outcomes.
Strategic Planning: The ability to set strategic direction, create plans, and prioritize tasks to achieve long-term goals.
What ChatGPT spat out isn’t bad, but it doesn’t tell you precisely what to do.
To discover what you need to do on a day-to-day basis, let’s break each skill down further:
Communication: Listening skills, questioning skills, communicating regularly via one-to-one meetings/team meetings/strategy meetings. You’ll also need to use different leadership styles and learn how to present.
Emotional intelligence: Knowing what makes you and your team tick, usually via behavioral assessments such as DiSC or MBTI.
Visionary thinking: Set SMART goals, keep track of goals in one-to-ones, and deliver performance appraisals to your team.
Decision making: How to make timely decisions and have a process.
Strategic planning: You’ll need to be organized, know systems such as Microsoft Excel or Project, and be able to prioritize and translate company objectives into team goals.
You can see that ‘communication skills’ are vague, but honing your ability to question and listen is a precise skill you can learn, as are delivering one-to-ones, team meetings, and strategy meetings.
Secret ingredient: Believe in the list. It is easy to pass off specific leadership skills as unnecessary because you don’t fancy doing them. But bear in mind that the higher up the leadership ladder you get, the more critical these people-based leadership skills are.
Step Two: Learn
Step Two is about learning to do each task properly and breaking it down into a step-by-step process.
How does a leader deliver performance appraisals and one-to-ones or give constructive feedback?
What do you do and say? What preparation is required? What are the steps?
Luckily, there are abundant resources to help you, including articles, courses, books, and other leaders at your organization.
You can get yourself a mentor, take out books from the library, watch YouTube and TED talks, and take online courses. Or join my free weekly email list here for regular leadership tips and articles.
Here are a few articles about leadership skills:
Presentation skills:
- For Captivating Presentations, Include These Three Things,
- 3 Essential Ingredients of a Kick Ass Presentation,
- Six Ways to Improve Your Presentation Skills to Ace Your First Training Session
Goal setting:
Leadership styles:
Listening:
Managing Performance:
- Managing Poor Performance: When to Give Feedback and When to Call HR
- How to Give Constructive Feedback to Your Team
Meetings:
- 10 Things Most People Don’t Know About Running Effective Meetings,
- One-to-One Meetings: Your Most Effective Leadership Tool,
- Why One-to-One Meetings Are Your Secret Engagement Superpower
“A growth mindset, as conceived by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and colleagues, is the belief that a person’s capacities and talents can be improved over time.” — Growth Mindset, www.Psychology Today.com
Secret Ingredient: Develop a growth mindset and believe you can learn anything with effort and practice. Most leadership skills can be broken down into simple steps that anyone can learn.
Step Three: Practice
Step Three is all about practice. You know what you need to learn; you’ve got a step-by-step process for each task, and you just need to practice.
Every leader has messed up and made mistakes when they started or moved further up the career ladder. Making mistakes is to be expected. We need practice to become proficient.
According to the 10:20:70 rule, 10% of learning is done in the classroom, 20% on the job under supervision, and 70% is done on the job without supervision.
Consistent practice is the key to becoming confident.
Secret Ingredient: Keep Calm & Carry On. Practice and hone your leadership skills even when you have messed up. Practice makes perfect but you have to put up with the pain of failing on the way.
Summary
Anyone can become a leader if they want to. It’s a simple matter of discovering, learning, and practicing leadership skills.
If you aspire to be a leader or want to improve your leadership skills, don’t let a lack of leadership training put you off.
Read books and articles, watch YouTube, do online courses, or join my free weekly newsletter here.
With my newsletter, you’ll also receive a complimentary New Leader’s Starter Kit with step-by-step instructions for delivering constructive feedback, one-to-ones (plus printable forms), and a listening skills checklist.
Thanks for reading, and have a great day :-)
Learn more about leadership in The Monday Morning Manager Series: