Twelve Essential Leadership Skills

This collection of Twelve Essential Leadership Skills describes a set of skills which, in the authors view, are each essential competencies for a proficient manager. Each Leadership Skill is self-contained, summarised in a couple of pages and can be used in a standalone way without reference to the other skills. The skills are quickly and easily digestible and instantly accessible for use, as required, for example, during group learning activities such as business simulations or problem-solving scenarios, to enhance the opportunities for practice and experiential learning.

Each skill can apply in many situations; however as a useful simplification, to make things easy, we have categorised each of the twelve skills into one of three “primary” perspectives:

• TEAM (Skills 1-4) – concern dealing with colleagues for whom you are directly or indirectly responsible
• PARTNERS (Skills 5-8) – concern interaction with all other colleagues including peers, bosses, senior management, third parties, customers, suppliers and other external parties
• SELF (Skills 9-12) – provide you with tools to help you manage your thinking, decision-making, risk and commitments

The booklet also provides a Skills Self-Assessment Template and free Online App which you can use to assess current skill levels and set development priorities.