The Concept of Leadership Skills and Traits - Assignment Example

As the leader of the task force, one is required to exhibit leadership equation, power of vision, the significance of ethics, ability to empower people, principles of leadership, human abilities, and understanding, high level of effectiveness, ability to develop other people, and performance management. This paper will hence focus on how leadership skills will lead to technical competence by a leader. The paper will also show an evaluation of the skills against my skills and how I will acquire and/ or strengthen my skill of leadership as I progress in my future leadership.

To be an effective leader, one needs to possess various leadership skills. In addition, a team leader needs to exhibit distinct leadership traits, behavior, styles, and qualities. As a leader one needs to be able to provide awareness of unity to all members of the team. The members will also have the ability to develop interpersonal relationships where every member gets a chance to learn from each other and contribute to work. To enhance togetherness toward achieving our common goal, a leader must portray leadership qualities and skills.  The leadership skills include listening ability, awarding credit to the team members, honesty, effective communication, ability to stick to strategies and goals, ability to beat anxiety and shape character, being service-oriented, accountability and responsible, empathetic, and keeping cool. In using these leadership skills a team leader needs to adopt various leadership styles to ensure the team achieves their goals effectively and efficiently. A combination of different styles of leadership works well in any environment especially where the public is involved. Some of the leadership styles used in showing the mentioned skills include: the authoritarian style of leadership, a leader, in this case, remains strict and offers close regulation and control, policies, and procedures given to the team members. To attain success, close supervision is necessary; a leadership style of democracy is another one, here a leader involves team members in decision-making by enhancing team members’ interests and practicing social equity and equality. This style will also include debate, discussion, and sharing of encouragement and ideas of the team so that the team can feel good about their involvement in the team. A transactional leadership style will allow for the motivation of the team members through a reward system. These leadership styles will be combined with leadership skills to bring about the technical competence of the leader and the success of the team.

Leadership skills such as listening ability, awarding credit to the team members, honesty, effective communication, and the ability to stick to strategies and goals are very important for a leader who is looking forward to technical competence. For instance, in listening ability skills; the leader will often pay much attention to their teams. The team members may be holding grievances among themselves that may impact the success of the tasks assigned. When a leader listens to his or her team members, he or she gives them a chance and opportunity for innovation and continuous improvement. Such leaders encourage learning from each other through sharing experiences of gains and losses as well. Team members become close and open to their leader when the leader shows a willingness to listen and handle their concerns and issues affecting their tasks. Therefore a leader needs to have the skill to listen to their followers.

Another effective leadership skill for effective leaders is the skill of communicating effectively and awarding credit to team members where it is due. This will ensure the team members feel appreciated for their efforts in the tasks assigned. Leaders who communicate effectively to their followers get appreciated and eliminate ambiguity in their statements. This is an important skill as it improves good relationships with the followers and motivates them to continue offering services to the team. Finally, the ability to stick to the strategies and goals of the team is also very pivotal to an effective leader. Leaders who compromise their goals in cases where challenges are broad are not effective and fail to finally meet their mission. However, a leader with the skill of sticking to his or her goals is productive and effective, they do not look back despite the challenges, and motivate the followers to hold on a little longer. These leadership skills, therefore, lead to technical competence by the leader in that the leader can have good communication and relationship with the followers and also increases the probability of meeting the goals.

Technical competence is about meeting your goals and competently executing your roles as a leader. This will be achieved when the stated leadership skills are demonstrated by a leader. As a leader, I also possess these skills of leadership. I communicate effectively, appreciate the work of others, and award credit where it’s due, I stick to my goals, and am honest, responsible, and accountable. I will acquire more leadership skills through practice.