By Linda Van Valkenburgh, MS, CCMC, CJSS, CSMCS, CELDC
Do you know the skills it takes to have C-level executive success? These skills go beyond just being a strong leader of an individual team. You’ll have several teams to lead and an influence on the overall direction of the company.
Whether you currently hold an executive position or you’re hoping to progress in your career into one, evaluate your leadership skills. Focus on developing these five skills as a part of your leadership style.
1. Decisive Decision Making
You should never rush to make a decision. You should also not make rash decisions without having all of the information. However, once you have the information and carefully consider your options, you need to act.
Decisive decision-making means you can make decisions promptly to lead effectively. The more you do this, the more you can develop these skills to make decisive decisions when you cannot obtain complete information or the situation is ambiguous.
When a leader takes too long to set priorities or to make a decision, everyone else is left in limbo waiting. Teams grow frustrated by the stalled progress and become unmotivated as their projects grow stagnant.
2. Confident Actions
If you don’t have confidence in your ability to lead, how can you expect anyone else to? Effective and successful leaders make decisions with convictions, even if they are unsure of the right next move. They understand that no one is perfect, and they will make mistakes.
The key to becoming a successful leader is having confidence despite risks or the potential for failure. This confidence from the ability to address issues and establish solutions to problems. Confident and successful leaders also understand that sometimes, making a wrong decision is better than not making any decision at all. It’s easier to undo and correct a wrong decision than it is to fix the chaos that ensues from no decision.
3. Engaging
As the leader, it is your job to get everyone else to buy into your ideas and plans for the company’s future. You need to be able to engage with a wide range of people and effectively communicate your ideas.
This could require you to adapt your communications based on your audience. You’ll need to communicate to a board of directors, shareholders, fellow executives, and employees.
4. See and Adapt
As an executive and leader of the company, you need to be looking towards the future. This means monitoring both the future of the company and the future of the industry. You then need to be able to act upon your observations.
This ensures that the company and your team have direction and focus. It also establishes you as a thought leader who is capable of steering the ship.
5. Reliable
Nothing is scarier for an employee than a leader that is unpredictable. It creates an unstable environment and a lack of security. It’s hard to feel good about your position and company when you don’t know what each day will bring.
Leaders who are reliable and act consistently create positive morale. Their team knows that when the leader says they will do something, that it will get done. Demonstrating reliability from the top can set the expected standard for everyone else.
Develop Your Leadership Skills
Do you have these five leadership skills? If the answer is no or that they could be better, then there’s no better time than the present to get to work. It can help to work with a professional career coach who can provide guidance. With a dedicated commitment to improving your leadership skills, you can enjoy C-level executive success.
Let’s get to work!
Linda
If you are ready to move your executive career forward contact me today at [email protected]