4 Essential Leadership Skills

1. Sincerity
   
   Fake greetings, forced smiles, and feigned attention are the tools a poor leader employs daily. It's easy to be fake - however it's even easier to notice when someone, smiling at you with set teeth, is pretending. A good leader must always try to be sincere and earnestly believe in what they say and do. Anything less and people will begin to pick up on their lack of respect for the team and the project at hand.
   
   The only way a leader can become sincere, or work towards sincerity, is by speaking the truth and acting in accordance with their true feelings at all times. However, we live in the real world, and sometimes people can't afford to be completely forthright with their ideas and thoughts.
   
   In other words, a leader is forced to be plastic and fake on occasion. Fine. Just make sure you know when you're doing it, why you're doing it, and know when to turn it off. Faking understanding and listening can be easy but it will only lead to bigger problems down the road. So the next time someone asks how you're feeling, don't be afraid to say, "Not good".
   
   
2. Empathy
   
   Face it. As a leader you wake up, get dressed, and commute to work with a unique set of problems revolving around your head. No one else on the team has your identical problems - but that doesn't mean they don't have their own universe of difficulties and troubles. As a busy manager, it can be hard to pick-up on the problems your staff are having. However, as a leader, it's your lot to try to understand every angle.
   
   In some retail organisations, corporate managers are forced to work on the sales floor for a week or two before they are allowed to sit behind their new desks. This practice is repeated throughout various organisations, because it's supposed to force managers to be empathetic toward the problems a regular staff member confronts daily. It works.
   
   A leader should know the nuts and bolts of every job that is being performed by their staff, in order to relate to its difficulty or recognise when an employee is incapable of their duties. Empathy can only come from understanding the true nature of the work and the difficulties it creates. Next time you get upset with your employee for taking his time keying in 100 pages of email addresses - ask yourself, "How long would that take me?".
   
   
3. Loyalty
   
   Leaders aren't worth anything without their team. For that statement to make sense in reverse, leaders must be loyal to their staff.
   
   Loyalty comes in different sizes. When managers are told to be loyal to their staff, they aren't expected to dramatically take bullets for their co-workers. Instead, leaders should protect their team from other departments and companies with vigour. Such loyalty will breed a sense of importance within the staff and compel employees to work harder for a larger good. Loyalty creates an irreplaceable bond that will, in most situations, ensure the reciprocation of loyalty.
   
   Loyalty forces, in a way, a manager to look at their team as a condensed family. The mental analogy works on many levels - but it should be used with caution. Slow team members must be cut and others must be trained rigorously. Don't force your loyalty on to a team that doesn't yet deserve it. Loyalty doesn't mean letting people off easy - loyalty has to be earned and should only come after time, hard work, and patience. 
   
   
4. Follow-though
   
   The act of following-through sounds easier than it really is. Everyone has solid ideas, plans, and goals that they want to implement professionally. The truth is, only a handful of people actually follow-through on their agendas.
   
   A good leader needs the ability to follow-through on ideas in order to add value to their organisation or team. A leader incapable of following-through - continually - won't be able to enlist support from their team or chase after bigger, more interesting, projects.
   
   Follow-through is the one ability that makes leaders, leaders. It's a leader's true skill, because it requires the organisation of many different elements, and the ability to get them all on your side in order to complete a goal. A leader who can't follow-through is like a tennis player without a racket. It's crucial that you are able to hit an idea home so that everyone on your team can feel a sense of accomplishment and success.

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