How to Improve Leadership Skills in the Workplace? [10 Essential Steps]
Every year, businesses lose up to $550 billion due to poor leadership. If you’re on the wrong path, your organization could face such a loss, too.
The important thing to remember is that anyone at any level, can lead your team if they have the right skills. If your job is helping your team members equip said skills, you’re at the right place.
In this step-by-step guide, we’ll tell you how to improve your leadership skills to enjoy better team performance, more trust, and a healthier work culture.
Step 1: Cultivate Self-Awareness
There’s no leadership without self-awareness. It’s a crucial skill since it helps you see how your actions and decisions affect those around you. If you’re not self-aware, you may confuse, frustrate, or disengage your team, even with the best intentions.
The key to building self-awareness is making the most of structured feedback: 360° reviews, anonymous surveys, or one-on-one debriefs. Pair this with consistent self-reflection: what went well, what didn’t, and why.
As part of a bank’s leadership development program, 1,200 middle managers partook in weekly digital role-play simulations to boost self-awareness. After eight weeks, managers who had improved their self-awareness found that their performance in managing important conversations began to speed up drastically. Before this, performance improvements were slow, but once self-awareness spiked, the pace of leadership skill development sped up, too.
Step 2: Practice Active Listening
Leadership without listening is ineffective. Active listening means giving your complete attention, withholding judgment, and making the other person feel heard. According to research, leaders perceived as good listeners are rated 37% more effective in their roles.
In one-on-one conversations, leaders should focus on understanding rather than responding. Repeat what you’ve heard to confirm clarity, and ask open-ended questions that invite honest input.
Step 3: Encourage Collaboration, Not Command
A “get this done” attitude may have gotten results so far, but it’s not a sustainable leadership style. In the long run, it hinders creativity and engagement in the workspace. Instead of issuing orders, strong leaders choose to involve their teams and encourage inclusive brainstorming.
In fact, a Harvard study of 55 companies found that those with leaders who actively sponsored and modeled collaboration saw much higher levels of teamwork and inclusivity than those who didn’t.
Step 4: Learn to Delegate Effectively
Delegating is probably one of your top responsibilities as a leader, but it’s not just about handing off work with a rigid set of instructions. Effective delegation means providing context, telling them your expectations, and trusting your team to deliver without any micromanagement.
This minor change has proven benefits. A Gallup survey of 143 Inc. 500 CEOs found that those with high delegator talent achieved an average three-year growth rate of 1,751%. That’s 112 percentage points higher than CEOs with low or limited delegation skills.
Step 5: Improve Conflict Resolution Skills
Avoiding conflict in the workspace doesn’t prevent problems — it usually makes them worse. As a leader, your job is to address conflict directly but constructively. The key is to approach things with curiosity, not criticism.
Instead of assigning blame, ask questions to understand the root issue. This shifts the conversation from confrontation to problem-solving.
Netflix perfectly exemplifies this through its “culture of candor.” Employees are expected to give and receive direct, honest feedback at all levels. Whether it’s tension within teams or underperformance, issues surfaced quickly and were discussed openly.
This way, there’s no guesswork and resentment, so employees can enjoy an environment where problems are solved before they escalate.
Step 6: Seek Out Mentorship and Reverse Mentorship
Leadership development doesn’t happen all alone. You can speed up your growth by getting mentorship from your seniors and even your juniors. That’s right — reverse mentorship can be very effective at exposing blind spots and keeping you in touch with the latest trends. Plus, research shows that mentees are five times more likely to be promoted than non-mentees.
Step 7: Communicate Vision and Purpose Clearly
It’s not rocket science: people simply perform better when they understand the larger purpose behind their work. Instead of just assigning tasks, try to communicate the “why” behind them.
With more clarity of vision, teams can align their daily actions with long-term goals and stay motivated during high-pressure periods. It starts with having a strategic plan. A nonprofit sector leadership study found that 77% of leaders with a strategic plan felt confident in their ability to communicate their vision to all stakeholders, compared to just 47% of leaders without one.
Step 8: Invest in Continuous Learning
When you think you’ve learned all there is to know about leadership, you leave no room for improvement. To be a great leader, you must commit to consistent learning. Not just in technical aspects but also in emotional intelligence, communication, and decision-making.
In fact, investing just 30 minutes of your day in leadership books, podcasts, or online courses can be a huge game-changer. Your team agrees, too — 94% of employees say they’d stay at an organization longer if it invested in their continuous learning and development.
Step 9: Give and Receive Feedback Constructively
You’re probably used to giving feedback as a leader, but has it been effective? Research shows that feedback only works if it’s clear, actionable, and objective.
To make your feedback more effective, you can use the SBI model (Situation, Behavior, Impact). Describe the situation, state the specific behavior, and explain the impact it had. This way, your team won’t spend any time trying to decode the vague criticism.
Step 10: Lead by Example
Last but not least, a leader’s behavior sets the tone for the entire team. The more consistent your behavior is, especially under pressure, the more your team will look to you as an example. Whether it’s meeting deadlines, owning up to mistakes, or showing empathy, the standards you uphold in your own actions are what others will replicate.
Conclusion
Even if your role is at the top of the company, there’s still a lot you can learn to improve your leadership skills in the workplace. In fact, great leaders never stop learning. Now that you’ve read our guide, you can use these examples and proven benefits to lead from a more innovative and empathetic standpoint.
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