Essential Skills for Successful Leaders

Shelly Prather Cruz
Jun 5
4 min read

Updated: Jun 9

Learn where current leaders are going wrong and what traits to foster in your management to help your company succeed.

We've all had our favorite bosses to work for, and we've all had bosses that have made us dread going into work everyday. What sets these leaders apart? It is most likely their managerial style and the type of oversight they provide. Many poor leaders have stricter oversight with their employees and micromanage them. Let's be honest, nobody wants this—it's not fun for the employee, it's a waste of management time, and the organization suffers. Micromanagers will have higher employee turnover, which costs the company money (Lipman, 2024).

Why is micromanaging a bad leadership strategy? Do I really need to spell it out? Besides making you feel like you're back in Elementary school again, Psychology Today highlights some of the consequences of micromanaging your team. For starters, it tells your employees that you don't trust them. It also perpetuates the "this is how we've always done it" mentality. Rather than letting your employees express their creativity at work, micromanaging tells your employees that your way is the only correct way to succeed, which can stifle growth in your company. Haven't these leaders ever heard that "there is more than one way to skin a cat?" (not that I'm condoning this practice). Additionally, micromanaging your employees will decrease their motivation and create an environment where employees will work only as hard as they need to obtain the bare minimum results (Lipman, 2024).

Empower your employees with autonomy and the freedom to make mistakes. While it can be scary to let go of control, your employees will thank you for giving them more decision-making opportunities. It's a good feeling to know that your leaders trust you (Lipman, 2024).

According to Forbes, mistakes help people grow, foster innovation, and should not be considered failures. While you don't want to set your employees up to make mistakes that would compromise your company, great leaders can create lower-stakes opportunities to give their employees autonomy. If mistakes are made, allow employees to own and learn from these opportunities, fix them, and then teach them ways to prevent mistakes from happening in the future (Anderson, 2015).

Focus on self-development rather than on how to fix your employees. Micromanagers tend to focus on the mistakes of their employees rather than looking introspectively. You will become a better leader by working on yourself, like practicing communication skills, asking questions, and listening to your employees' perspectives.

Harvard Business Review discusses 6 skills that are essential for leadership and suggestions for developing them. The first skill, "emotional aperture," refers to being savvy to the different emotional dynamics on your team. This helps foster a more inclusive environment by checking in on your employees and making them feel heard.

The second skill, "adaptive communication," refers to reading the room. Not all of your employees will be motivated the same way, so your leadership style should adjust accordingly based on the individual in front of you.

The third skill, "flexible thinking," is fairly straightforward. Situations may arise where you need to be open to different opinions as a leader, which can be done by seeking out perspectives that differ from your own and asking good questions along the way.

The fourth skill is "perspective seeking, taking, and coordinating," which goes hand in hand with flexible thinking. This skill involves seeing the world from different perspectives, which can be achieved by connecting with people who have different opinions and viewpoints from your own.

The fifth skill is called "strategic disruption skills," or being the one to challenge conventional wisdom to create a more inclusive environment for your team. This promotes learning opportunities and growth rather than sticking to the status quo.

Finally, the sixth skill leaders should work on is called "resilient self-awareness," which is having enough self-awareness to recognize your own limitations and ask for help from peers, your boss, professional development, etc. This helps set an important example for your employees, showing them that everyone has limitations, and that's ok (Knight, 2024).

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Literature Cited

Anderson, Amy Rees. (2015, May 15). Good Employees Make Mistakes. Great Leaders Allow Them To. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyanderson/2013/04/17/good-employees-make-mistakes-great-leaders-allow-them-to/

Knight, Rebecca. (2024, October 18). 6 Essential Leadership Skills — and How to Develop Them. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2024/10/6-essential-leadership-skills-and-how-to-develop-them

Lipman, Victor. (2024, September 23). Why Micromanagement Is So Harmful. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-of-the-manager/202409/why-micromanagement-is-so-harmful

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