Why You Need to Make Sure Your Leaders Have These Skills

1. Why You Need to Make Sure Your Leaders Have These Skills

2. Leaders can make or break a company. If you have a highly effective and talented group of supervisory staff, your organization will be more productive and profitable. Conversely, ineffective leadership can create a wide range of challenges for your company. Poor leadership can lead to low staff morale, high attrition rates, declining productivity, and reduced revenue. Therefore, it is vital that you carefully vet individuals before placing them in important leadership positions. Specifically, you should ensure that these professionals possess effective leadership skills. Otherwise, they will not be able to fulfill their job responsibilities, nor will they be able to help line-level staff reach their true potential. Below, we identify several must-have leadership skills for which you should screen supervisory candidates. We also reveal how to measure these skills using expertly crafted screening tools known as leadership skills tests. Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills To lead effectively, supervisors and managerial staff must possess a broad range of technical abilities, generally called hard skills. You are probably already screening leadership candidates for hard skills when making promotion decisions. However, like many other companies, you may be neglecting to evaluate leadership candidates’ soft skills. This oversight can be problematic as leaders must possess several invaluable soft skills to effectively manage others. The exact definition of soft skills will vary depending on who you ask. However, this category of talents and abilities includes interpersonal skills, character traits, and non-job-specific proficiencies. Most soft skills, such as the six abilities identified in a recent Forbes article are challenging to measure using traditional screening processes like interviews.

3. Fortunately, it is possible to accurately measure these abilities using a leadership skills test, but more on that later. Must-Have Effective Leadership Skills Before we take a deep dive into leadership skills tests, let’s identify the skills you should be screening for and why they are relevant. Since the specific technical skills that a leader needs will vary depending on what industry you operate within, we will focus on soft skills only. Every leader, regardless of industry, needs soft skills such as: Emotional Intelligence: Leaders must manage employees with diverse personality traits and emotional maturity levels every day. Effectively performing this task requires a high level of emotional intelligence. Great leaders are skilled at “reading the room” to detect friction. They should also be able to manage their emotions, use these feelings to motivate subordinates, and healthily express negative sentiments. Communication: Leaders are responsible for conveying objectives, deadlines, company goals, and other key information to their teams. Relaying this information requires clear and effective communication skills. Leaders must communicate effectively across various mediums, including in-person conversations, video chats, and email. Empathy: Empathetic leaders can better relate to the personal and professional challenges their teams face. Leaders can form strong connections with staff members and help them reach their true potential by showing empathy. Conversely, leaders who lack empathy may alienate employees, damage morale, and cause staff to seek employment elsewhere. Conflict Resolution: Even the best teams will experience conflict on occasion. Conflict arises when staff members are passionate about their work and the success of their projects. However, leaders must step in and arbitrate these conflicts to serve the company’s and those involved’s best interests.

4. The above-mentioned abilities are only a few essential leadership skills you can screen for using skills testing solutions. The best leaders possess these skills and know-how to leverage them to optimize team performance. How to Measure Essential Leadership Skills A skills test is the only practical way to measure soft skills. Many leadership skills tests are available from eSkill, including Emotional Intelligence, Change Management, Remote Leadership Skills, and Team Management. Each skills test covers several topics and includes approximately 40 questions. All skills tests are administered online via a user-friendly testing portal. Hiring or promotion panels can review their results as soon as participants submit their assigned skills tests. These skills tests provide quantifiable data on an individual’s soft skills and abilities, so you can make an informed promotion decision. By improving your screening process, you can ensure that those appointed to leadership positions have the skills needed to succeed. This approach will also increase employee morale and productivity. By taking a standardized approach to vet leadership candidates, you can ensure the ongoing strength of your organization. Leadership Skills Tests from eSkill Do you want to leverage leadership skills tests to help your team develop practical leadership skills? Contact eSkill to request a demo.

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