Did you know that Customer Focus is a competency that you can develop? We define the Customer Focus competency as, "Anticipating, meeting and/or exceeding customer needs, wants and expectations." Who do you know who is highly skilled at Customer Focus?

With practice, you can grow and develop this skill just like other "hard skills" you might be good at like cooking, public speaking, employee coaching, or playing golf.

How do I grow as a leader: Customer Focus?

Those with a highly developed skill of Customer Focus exhibit the following:

• Strives to anticipate, identify and understand customers' wants, needs and concerns.
• Responds to customers with a sense of urgency.
• Follows through on customer requests.
• Is patient and courteous with customers.
• Resolves issues and complaints to the satisfaction of customers.
• Expends extraordinary effort to satisfy customers.
• Develops relationships with customers.
• Partners with customers to assist them in achieving their...

Did you know that Creativity and Innovation is a competency that you can develop? We define the Creativity and Innovation competency as, "Creating new approaches, designs, processes, technologies and/or systems to achieve the desired result." Who do you know who is highly skilled at Creativity and Innovation?

With practice, you can grow and develop this skill just like other "hard skills" you might be good at like cooking, public speaking, employee coaching, or playing golf.

How do I grow as a leader: Creativity and Innovation?

Those with a highly developed skill of Creativity and Innovation exhibit the following:

• Notices unique patterns, variables, processes, systems or relationships.
• Expresses non-traditional perspectives and/or novel approaches.
• Synthesizes data, ideas, models, processes or systems to create new insights.
• Challenges established theories, methods and/or protocols.
• Encourages and promotes creativity and innovation.
• Modifies existing concepts,...

Did you know that Continuous Learning is a competency that you can develop? We define the Continuous Learning competency as, "analyzing hypothetical situations, patterns and/or abstract concepts to formulate connections and new insights." Who do you know who is highly skilled at Continuous Learning?

With practice, you can grow and develop this skill just like other "hard skills" you might be good at like cooking, public speaking, employee coaching, or playing golf.

How do I grow as a leader: Continuous Learning?

Those with a highly developed skill of Continuous Learning exhibit the following:

• Demonstrates curiosity and enthusiasm for learning.
• Takes initiative in acquiring and mastering the skills and knowledge requirements of a position.
• Keeps abreast of current or new information through reading and other learning methods.
• Actively interested in new technologies, processes and methods.
• Welcomes or seeks assignments requiring new skills and knowledge.
• Expends...

Did you know that Conflict Management is a competency that you can develop? We define the Conflict Management competency as, "understanding, addressing and resolving conflict constructively."  Who do you know who is highly skilled at Conflict Management?

With practice, you can grow and develop this skill just like other "hard skills" you might be good at like cooking, public speaking, employee coaching, or playing golf.

How do I grow as a leader: Conflict Management?

Those with a highly developed skill of Conflict Management exhibit the following:

• Demonstrates genuine concern for others.
• Respects and values people.
• Wants to ensure people experience positive emotions.
• Expends considerable effort to impact the needs, concerns and feelings of others.
• Advocates for the interests, needs and wants of others.
• Demonstrates sensitivity and understanding.
• Takes personal and/or professional risks for the sake of others.
• Recognizes and enjoys the good...

Did you know that Conceptual Thinking is a competency that you can develop? We define the Conceptual Thinking competency as, "analyzing hypothetical
situations, patterns and/or abstract concepts to formulate connections and new insights." Who do you know who is highly skilled at Conceptual Thinking?

With practice, you can grow and develop this skill just like other "hard skills" you might be good at like cooking, public speaking, employee coaching, or playing golf.

How do I grow as a leader: Conceptual Thinking?

Those with a highly developed skill of Conceptual Thinking exhibit the following:

• Demonstrates the ability to identify patterns, themes or connections not
  noticed by others.
• Gathers hypothetical or abstract concepts to formulate new insights.
• Evaluates many patterns to formulate connections.
• Recognizes unique or unusual perspectives.
• Envisions hypothetical situations to formulate new concepts.
• Utilizes patterns to develop new ways to process information.
• ...

So far, we've gone over three of the five areas you need to understand to be a great leader who grows a healthy team: Driving Forces, Behaviors, and Emotional Intelligence. Next, we're going to cover Competencies or soft skills. 

All people have all of these personal skills to one degree or another. Everyone can't be good at everything, however, so you want to focus on developing the competencies that

• A) You are already strong in 
• B) Focus on the ones that you need to be strong in for your current and future roles.

Over the next few lessons, we will be investigating each of these 25 abilities one at a time to help you grow as a leader.

How do I develop as a leader?

Developing your skills as a leader is just like developing any other skill, it takes practice and lots of it. The trouble is, it's not always as easy to identify how developed our skills are at work, especially in "white-collar," creative or knowledge work. In fields with lots of technical skill...

Did you know that Appreciating Others is a competency that you can develop? We define the Appreciating Others competency as, "identifying with and caring about others."  Who do you know who is highly skilled at Appreciating Others?

With practice, you can grow and develop this skill just like other "hard skills" you might be good at like cooking, public speaking, employee coaching, or playing golf.

How do I grow as a leader: Appreciating Others?

Those with a highly developed skill of Appreciating Others exhibit the following:

• Demonstrates genuine concern for others.
• Respects and values people.
• Wants to ensure people experience positive emotions.
• Expends considerable effort to impact the needs, concerns, and feelings of others.
• Advocates for the interests needs and wants of others.
• Demonstrates sensitivity and understanding.
• Takes personal and/or professional risks for the sake of others.
• Recognizes and enjoys the good qualities of others.
• Provides...

Social Regulation is your ability to influence the emotional clarity of others. You do this through a proficiency in managing relationships and building networks. There are numerous and varied abilities involved in building a network of good relationships. Leaders with high social regulation can “take the emotional temperature” of others and then respond and adapt in ways that build rapport and common ground.

Are you a socially regulated leader?

You are probably in a leadership role because you have already developed your social regulation skill to some degree. The most effective leaders are not only able to regulate their own emotions, but they are good at reading and regulating the emotions of others. If the members of your team are in a good emotional state, they will likely be much more productive. That is the time to capitalize and bring on new projects and challenges. If the emotional state of the team is weak, however, it may make more sense to pull back and work...

Social Awareness is the ability to understand the emotions of other people and how your words and actions affect them. Another name for this is empathy. When you are with another person, how well are you able to notice, understand and empathize with what they are feeling?

Everyone is in their own unique emotional state every day. This affects their work and how they relate with others. Working on your own Social Awareness skill can improve your interactions and overall effectiveness. Just as you can practice taking your own emotional temperature throughout the day, you can make a point of becoming more observant of others’ feelings too.

Are you a socially aware leader?

As each of us go through our day, we experience both positive and negative events and emotions. The influential negative endorphins (cortisol) are greatly compromising innovation and creativity when it is needed most. Just as negative and threatening experiences have dire consequences to the chemistry of our...

Motivation is a passion to work for reasons that go beyond one’s external Driving Forces and are based on an internal drive or propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence. It’s been a while now, but you may recall from our series of emails on the 12 Driving Forces that they help us understand what external factors propel us into action. But what happens when none of them are present?

Are you a motivated leader?

Are you able to pursue your goals with energy and persistence in the absence of your external drivers? This is a skill which you can be developing as you seek to strengthen your leadership. Once again, let’s use an example from your team to help understand this concept. First, we need to imagine a situation where you know you need to do something that you don’t want to do. For the sake of the example, let’s say that one of the members of your team is struggling in an area and the best course of action for you to take as the leader...