The 10 Essential Skills Every New Leader Needs

There are numerous leadership, supervisory, and management skills that can add to your ability to be an effective, successful leader. Several leadership fads and techniques have come and gone in our 40 years of experience, but there are a few key skillsets that have stood the test of time.

Whether you are beginning to navigate the waters as a new leader, or are looking to improve upon a leadership skillset, it is important know the fundamentals, how you measure up, and to begin to build a plan to learn the basics of leadership.

Here is our list of the top 10 timeless, essential skills that you need as a leader, along with the reasons why they are valuable:

1. Influence

To be a great influencer, you need to learn about power bases and your personal power, influencing styles, and networking. But not all influencers are created equally—by taking proper self-assessments and establishing which influencing style is most suited to your leadership methods, you can enhance your abilities to negotiate, achieve results at meetings, and improve your management success. Check out our Influencing Skills course to learn more.

2. Effective Communication

One 2023 article from Expert Market states that 86% of employees and executives cite the lack of effective collaboration and communication as the main causes for workplace failures.

Communication skills are critical when it comes to leadership, and learning to listen, engage and connect with people across cultures and departments is paramount. Our Communication & Listening Skills course covers these tactics and more.

3. Strategic Thinking

The ability to think strategically, identify new opportunities, and make informed decisions that align with organizational goals is critical in an effective leader. It enhances your ability to anticipate challenges, plan for the future, and adapt to changes in the business environment.

But strategic thinking is only one piece of the puzzle—turning strategic ideas into action is a skill that separates great managers from great leaders. Learn more about how to put yours strategic vision in place with our Strategic Planning course.

4. Project Management Skills

Project management skills are essential for overseeing complex tasks. Project management is a wide-ranging skillset that includes things like scope management, scheduling, budgeting, and risk assessment. While not all leaders are project managers, the basic skills are critical to managing your organization. Thankfully, there are options like our Project Management Basics course that can show you the basics so that you can be more effective if your role.

5. Conflict Management

Did you know that employees in United States companies spend on average 2.8 hours each week involved in conflict? While we’d all like to stay out of workplace conflicts, they are inevitable.

An effective leader has to gain the skills that allow them to guide employees on how to manage and resolve conflicts constructively. There are many strategies to do this, and understandably there is no one-size-fits-all option.

Taking our Conflict Management course gives you the tools in your arsenal to identify if a conflict is positive or negative, and which strategies to employ to get the best possible resolution.

6. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is crucial for effective leadership, but it is often overlooked when promoting technical individuals to management roles. So why is it that technically brilliant people sometimes fail at collaborating on teams and managing others?

Emotional Intelligence courses help employees to understand and manage their emotions, recognize emotional cues, and empathize with others. It enables them to build strong relationships, handle stress, and lead with empathy and resilience. These courses are especially critical for highly technical managers and leaders who may be skilled in their functional role, but require more soft skill development.

7. Change Management

Change is a constant in the business world, and managing it effectively is crucial. Leaders must master the art of navigating organizational change, communicating its benefits, and leading teams through transition periods. It fosters adaptability and minimizes resistance to change.

Programs like our Change - Managing it Effectively course offer useful tools like the 30/30/30/10 rule, personal action plans to help your team through a change in the most effective way.

8. Performance Management

When you think of the phrase “performance management”, what comes to mind? For most employees, it may be the dreaded annual review they receive that includes vague, motivational feedback from their manager. But what if we told you that employees are 3x more engaged when they receive daily feedback from their managers vs. annual feedback?

Courses for performance management focus on techniques for setting goals, providing feedback, and evaluating performance. It helps employees develop effective performance management systems, establish clear expectations, and motivate their team members to achieve their best. Whether you are keeping your top performers engaged, or developing improvement plans for your poor performers, consistent performance management is critical.

9. Financial Basics

As a new manager, it is important to understand how your organization makes money, and when it is made – where the money goes. The ability to grasp basic financial concepts is one thing, but the ability to develop specific strategies to improve the financial position of your organization can make you indispensable.

Our Finance for Non-Financial Managers course not only explores basis financial terminology, ratios and statements, it helps new leaders to understand how their role, along with their team’s, has a direct impact on the bottom line of your organization.

10. Good Time Management

There is a plethora of statistics available online that talk about the value of effective time management in the workplace. In an article titled “8 time management statistics every business should know in 2023”, one statistic that jumped out at us was that the average worker spends 51% of every workday on low to no-value tasks. Yikes.

If you are one of the individuals that could use some serious time management support, consider taking a course that allows you to negotiate your priorities, identify your top time wasters and learn to say no to them, and manage your meetings more effectively. Can you imagine what you could do with 51% more time in your week?

Final Thoughts

In this blog post, we have highlighted ten crucial leadership skills and corresponding courses that employers should consider for their employees.

These courses cover a wide range of critical skills, including leadership and influence, effective communication, strategic thinking, project management, conflict resolution and negotiation, emotional intelligence, change management, performance management, financial skills, and time management and productivity.

Investing in leadership development is a key strategy for thriving in today's competitive business landscape. By providing employees with the opportunity to enhance their leadership, supervisory, and management skills, employers can foster a highly skilled workforce that drives productivity, teamwork, and organizational success. By seeking out critical leadership skills and developing in areas of difficulty, you can make yourself indispensable to your organization.

Lemmex Williams Inc. has been delivering these kinds of courses for over 4 decades, and can help you or your employees develop the skills they need to be the best leaders possible.

So what skills do you need to be a better leader today?