Master These 7 People Skills to Become a GREAT Leader

For any manager or leader, you need to have both good technical skills and people skills in order for you to do your job effectively. Technical skills are job focused or task specific and they're generally what you build up through your education, through your training or through your on-the-job experience. People skills are human skills that you need to manage people in your team, to interact with them and to encourage them to perform to their highest level. Aspiring managers and leaders who show a high level of technical skill are often seen as competent enough to get promoted into senior positions and what often happens with these skills-based promotions is while they have the technical skills necessary for the job, they often don't have the people skills that are necessary to manage and to lead people and that creates a skills gap for the manager or leader. They excel on the technical side of what they are required to do but as soon as they need to assert themselves or manage different performance levels or navigate rivalry in a team, they start to fall apart and that's when their boss starts to question whether they are management or leadership material. To help you avoid this dilemma, we are going to look at seven people skills that you need to develop when you are a Usually when you see videos like this, the people rehash very generic skills that are required in management and leadership like you need to have good communication skills, you need to motivate people but I want to approach this on a more granular level. I want to be very specific about the skills that I share with you so you can walk away from this video with an understanding of very distinct people skills that you need to develop. Let's dig into it. Number one, use reflective listening. Reflective listening is where you use mirroring or paraphrasing to show that you have heard and understood what the other person has said and also to confirm your understanding about what they said to you. It's a useful skill to improve your understanding of ideas, approaches and problems. For example, when your team share their ideas with you during a meeting. It's also a useful skill to deal with conflict between team members because it's a kind of communication technique that you need during empathetic conversations. How can you use reflective listening? Well, like I mentioned before, it requires you to use mirroring and paraphrasing. So let's look at each of these right now. Mirroring is where you copy or match what that person communicated to you. This could be through their body language. For example, if they lean forward, you might lean forward as well. It could be through their verbal communication where you repeat key phrases that they have used when they've been talking to you, for example. So you don't have enough time to complete this task. This helps the other person know that you have heard and you have understood what they've said to you. In other words, that you have listened to them. You could also use paraphrasing. This is where you repeat what they've said, but in your own words. Verbally, this could sound like, let me see if I understand correctly. You say that you don't have enough time to complete this task. This helps you to get clarification from that person as to whether your understanding is correct. In order to use reflective listening, you need to let the other person talk. So don't interrupt them. Don't cut them off when they're trying to explain things to you. Give them the space they need to talk properly. And while they are talking, make sure you listen for the key phrases and the key points that they're making, because this is what you're going to use for the mirroring and for the paraphrasing. Number two, assert yourself. This primarily happens through your communication, through your assertive communication, which is where you communicate honestly and directly your feelings, your wants, and your opinions. Assertive communication is helpful for a number of reasons. It helps you give clear direction to people in your team. For example, when you are delegating to them, you can clearly explain what you would like them to do. It helps you set boundaries with people in your team so people know what is expected of them and they don't overstep those boundaries. It helps you say no when you need to, because sometimes as a manager or as a leader, you do need to say no to people in your team. It also helps you to deal with pushback because one of the things that happens when you start to become more assertive, especially if you are coming from a more passive style of communication, is that people will push back on your assertiveness and they will try to force you to become passive again. But if you have adopted assertive communication and good assertive communication skills, you'll be able to deal with that pushback really well. Let's look at how you can assert yourself. So you need to use clear and direct language. For example, I would like you to do X, Y, Z. I need you to do X, Y, Z. Avoid vague language such as maybe we should think about doing X, Y, Z. Be courteous and polite to avoid being aggressive. Give bad news to people directly rather than beating around the bush. These are just some of the ways you can be more assertive in your communication style. If you want to learn more about how to become more assertive, then you need to check out my online video course currently sold on Udemy, the Assertive Communication Skills Masterclass. I will put a discount link in the description below. If you run a team, you're likely to have people with varying levels of skill, ability, and competence, which means that people will perform at different levels inside the one team. The same task can be performed very efficiently by person A, but it takes two hours longer for person B to complete that same task, plus it is filled with mistakes. For you as a manager or a leader, when you have a team that has different skill levels, this means that you need to give a different amount of attention to each person. Underperformers need more time, support, and guidance from you. High performers need a lot less or none at all. You need to identify the performance levels of each person in your team and tailor your approach to get the best out of them. Because if you don't give enough attention to underperformers, they will continue to complete tasks that are full of mistakes or that are inaccurate or that take a lot more time than what is necessary. They won't grow and develop as a professional and you as a manager and leader will have to continue to support them and to guide them in the future, which takes you away from the other goals and other things that you need to take care of as a leader. But on the flip side, if you give too much attention to high performers, then they might feel stifled and they might say that you are micromanaging them. So how can you manage different performance levels? Well, first, you need to become familiar with the skill level of every person in your team. You need to think about and look at their previous education, experience, and results. You should adopt a supportive and a guiding approach to under performers. And for high performers, you should be present for them, but also give them the autonomy that they need to complete the work on their own. You should also try to detect motivation levels as well, because this will impact performance levels of those people in your team. For example, somebody who is not very experienced may have a lot of motivation to learn and to complete a task and they'll do it really well. Number four, encourage people to share ideas. This is really important for leaders because you need your team to share ideas with you and with other people in your team. So you can encourage and attract a diverse range of ideas. You don't lead in a vacuum. You may not always have the best ideas. You need to invite people in your team to share their ideas. Then you need to sift through them and work out which idea is the best one. And that is the power of group meetings. They're a fantastic opportunity for everyone to contribute their ideas and for you to tap into their knowledge, their intelligence, and their experience as well. Because at the end of the day, that is why you hired the people in your team. They have an immense amount of experience and competence and knowledge and they can share that with you. This is all valuable and you can tap into all of this during a group meeting by encouraging people to share their ideas. So how can you encourage people to share their ideas? Well, first you need to openly tell them that you want to hear their ideas. This is really important because in meetings a lot of people will go quiet. They will shut down or they might rely on other ideas that other people in the room share instead, instead of contributing their own. When people share their ideas, show that you have heard and understood what they've said. Use reflective listening like we talked about in point one of this video. This is how you show people that their idea hasn't been ignored. And don't ignore or immediately reject ideas before you've considered them. This will make people feel unheard, unimportant and it will make them reluctant to share any ideas with you in the future. And lastly, thank people when they do share their ideas. This will reinforce the fact that you appreciate them contributing and it will encourage them to share their ideas in the future. All of these ideas will help you to establish psychological safety in your team, which is really important if you want people to share and contribute their ideas in a confident and a comfortable way. The fifth skill that you need to learn is the ability to fuel people's strength for motivation. This means that you should give people work that plays to their strengths in order to motivate them. Why is this important? Well, when people are involved in work that they're good at, it's usually because they enjoy that work. They enjoy performing that task or using that skill and this joy has enabled them to become proficient in that task. This joy also motivates them to continue performing that task or to become better at it in the future. For you as a leader, in order to fuel this chain of events, you need to assign work to people that they are good at and that they enjoy doing. Before you do this, though, you need to identify what the strengths are of people in your team. And for this, I recommend you take a look at the Clifton Strengths Assessment by Gallup. This particular assessment is a paid assessment. I have to let you know that I am not affiliated with them in any way. They are not sponsoring this video at all. I do not earn any money or commission from recommending them to you. I'm simply mentioning it because it's something that I have used personally with my coaching clients. Alternatively, you can use the High Five Test, which is a free assessment to find out what your top five strengths are. Again, I'm not affiliated. They're not sponsoring this video either. I will put links to both of the Clifton Strengths The sixth people skill that you need to learn as a leader is the ability to navigate rivalry in your team. When people work together and they have different personality types, there's a likelihood that you will get some kind of rivalry or competition in your team. And if ignored, it can turn toxic and lead to further damage in your team. People might begin to resent working with others in the team. They might stop sharing work. They might overtly disagree with one another. And at an extreme level, people might actually quit because the team environment is so toxic. You as a manager or a leader, you need to navigate this and you need to take care of it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. How can you do this? Well, when you detect rivalry or competition in a team, don't ignore it. Have one on one conversations with the people who are involved. Try to identify the root cause of the problem. Talk with them to work out a solution to the problem and also make sure you monitor their progress. The seventh and probably the most important skill that you need to build as a leader is your inner confidence. Inner confidence is paramount to your success as a leader. You will face challenging situations. You will face new situations. These situations will test your confidence. You can either crumble in the face of these obstacles or you can rise to the challenge and become a stronger leader. One of the things that I've noticed in my work is that leaders are incredibly proud when they are promoted into a leadership position. And this might last for a while, but as soon as they face a new challenge, as soon as they face something that is difficult or daunting, they lose confidence in themselves and they start to wonder whether they are the right person for that job. They start to wonder whether they are leadership material at all. And the sad thing is, this is where some people quit. They don't try to work through that obstacle. They don't try to build their inner confidence to face that challenge. They simply give up and feel like a failure for the rest of their lives. I don't want this to happen to you. I know that you are in a leadership position for a good reason because you deserve to be there because you have the technical skills for the job. And because your boss believes you have the people skills for the job as well. I don't want you to quit and to damage your self-confidence to feel like the rest of your life that you're a failure or that you couldn't be a leader because I know you have what it takes. You just need to build up your self-confidence so you can stick and commit to those challenging times and overcome those obstacles that you face as well. Sometimes those obstacles will require you to learn a new skill, to develop a new skill or some kind of technique. So you might need to identify this as a learning opportunity. The fact that you are feeling a lack of self-confidence, it could be because it is a learning opportunity for you. So take some time to go away and learn what you need to learn and come back to that challenge with a lot more confidence the next time around. The good news is these two videos up here will help you out with this. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you got a lot of value from this video. If you did, please hit the like button below, subscribe to my channel as well for more content like this in the future. And I will see you next week in another video.