Are leaders born or made?

Well, leaders are born, but only in la la land!!! You can be born with the traits of a leader but the right encouragement is a must for developing leadership skills.

While developing leadership skills at an early stage has its advantages, it’s never too late to start if you haven’t yet discovered the leader in you! And that’s not a whole load of motivational hogwash.

In this piece, let’s take a look at the why and how of developing leadership skills.

Successful management requires more than just assigning tasks to the team. It calls for a leader who can inspire team members to achieve their full potential. People want to be guided by a person they respect, someone who has a clear sense of direction. To be that person, there are certain things that you must BE, KNOW and DO. And that’s what developing leadership skills is all about.

Robert K. Greenleaf

”The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.”

If you want to set an example for others to follow, may we suggest the following check-list?

1. Test the waters: find out what people think about your style of management. This could be a real eye opener, and the key to making changes to your leadership style. Employ a 360 degree approach wherein you receive feedback from your team members and peers. Let your team in on the objective behind the survey. A relaxed and open environment will help draw out their honest opinion.

2. Listen hard: when your team members speak to you about all their work related worries, hear them out. You could convey empathy, suggest alternatives and create harmony within the team. GREAT LEADERS ARE GREAT LISTENERS!!!!!

3. Connect: take complete responsibility for how you are heard. Always rephrase your message to make it sound positive. Effective communication is a fine art.

4. Be a people’s person: an integral part of developing leadership skills is to learn to respect your team’s capabilities. Let the team members take decisions on certain issues. Trust them with their work; don’t be a watchdog.

5. Lead by example: your team must believe in your integrity, and that you really mean what you say. Be prepared to put your money where your mouth is. It works like a charm!

6. Share leadership: distribute tasks among group members depending on the situation and individual strengths. You become a better leader by involving more people in the leadership process.

7. Evaluate your success in tandem with that of the team: your prime responsibility is to ensure success and development of the team. Focus on building their skills as this will enhance motivation and team performance. Remember, their success is yours too!

Harvey S. Firestone said “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” We couldn’t agree more!



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esses today recognise the importance of good management that is based on firm and basic management skills-but how are these managers taught what are good leadership skills? Previously before the advent of training courses managers were expected to know the principles of good management and practise them with little in the way of assessment or training to ensure that all managers met certain standards. This would inevitably lead to inconsistencies in how leadership was practised and also result in poor practises being the norm-something which is not acceptable in the workplace of today.

If a business wants to have the best management and team leaders it is vital that they all possess excellent leadership skills such as the ability to work with people, to motivate others, provide negative and positive feedback, encourage their teams to strive for their targets as well as other aspects of the role. These are attributes that are not always inherent in a person and in order to provide a management structure that is positive and objective lead leader skills training can be a huge benefit.

Leadership skills courses can tend to be ‘hit and miss’ there are many company’s out there who will tell you that their leadership courses are the best and get many delegates this way, but who can you trust to deliver what they say? Any business that is looking to create a team of managers that have outstanding leadership skills which make them a credit to that business it is important that the training courses they attend build upon their existing skills and develop new ones. To be able to do this successfully training courses should be not only designed to include the objectives, vision and beliefs of the but also be cost effective and delivered in a timely fashion.

One way of doing this is to have an on-site training department that is responsible for training all employees but for the majority of small to medium sized businesses this is simply not a viable option as it is too costly. Instead it makes more sense financially and in terms of time spent training to use the services of an outside company to provide all your training needs. Deciding on the company that provides your leadership training can be difficult, so it is important to look to a company that will take the time to tailor a training course for your business and be on hand after the course to provide ‘after care’ for any questions or queries that delegates may have.

Premier Training are a training company that go out of their way to provide leadership training that is cost effective, efficient and gets you the results that you want for your management team. This is done by creating leadership skills training courses that are in line with the needs and requirements of your business and totally relevant, thanks to communication between the training planner at Premier Training (who is not a salesperson but a training expert) and yourself the business owner. Tell Premier Training your needs and they will develop a leadership Training course that is right for you.

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