What Leadership Competencies Do You Need For The Future?

I have often talked about the need for leaders to evolve and develop new skills when it comes to leading, motivating and retaining the best team members. In retail, I find that the best store leaders have the best team and pull the best results, not too surprising. Gallup research certainly backs this up and their research shows that 70% of a team’s engagement is influenced by the leader.

Considering the impact of employee engagement on business outcomes, it would make sense for companies to overinvest in training their leaders – but how many actually do that?

And what skills do these leaders need to be effective now and into the future?

Gallup found the following seven leadership competencies are usually found in leaders who create high performance teams:

The ability to:

1. Build relationships – successful leaders establish connections with others to build trust, share ideas and accomplish work.
2. Develop people – they set clear expectations, train their team to be successful and follow up by using a coaching approach to lock in new behaviours via praise and encouragement.
3. Drive change – they embrace change and communicate the new vision so team members understand the reasons and steps required.
4. Inspire others – they use positive reinforcement, confidence and recognition to influence performance and motivate team members to meet their challenges.
5. Think critically – they are keen learners and use the information gained to solve problems.
6. Communicate clearly – one of their best skills is their ability to listen, be open to ideas from their team and they openly share information
7. Create accountability – through setting clear expectations, they identify the consequences of actions and hold themselves and their team accountable.

How well do you rate against these seven competencies?

Roger Simpson – CEO, The Retail Solution and Author of “The Ultimate Retail Sales Experience” With over 35 years’ industry experience, Roger Simpson is recognized as Australia’s #1 Authority on customer ROI in the retail industry and as a global expert on staff coaching, customer service, and selling skills.