There’s an old axiom that “leaders are born not made.” The problem with this adage, like many others that have been around for far longer than they should be, is that it’s just not true. Science says that, while leadership does have a genetic component, over 70% of total leadership skills are learned, not inherited. This means that all of us, no matter our background, have the capacity to become a better leader.

But how? The first step in understanding how to improve your own leadership skills is, of course, understanding what characteristics make somebody a good leader to begin with. That’s the question I’m going to investigate here, while helping us all to figure out what we need to work on to become better leaders in the process.

5 Things All Good Leaders Do

1. Communicate Clearly - Whether providing feedback to a team member in a face-to-face setting, or reaching out to a coworker via email, good leaders are able to engage in honest and straightforward communication with the people they manage. Practicing active communication skills, both when speaking and listening, with your employees can create an open atmosphere wherein each member of your team feels empowered to complete the tasks assigned to them.
   
   
2. Set Achievable Goals - Setting both short-term and long-term goals is an important aspect of achieving success, as is communicating those goals clearly to your team so they know what is expected of them. In this sense, communication and goal-setting go hand-in-glove, as goals and expectations cannot be met if leaders are not sharing them with the rest of their team in a comprehensive manner.
   
   
3. Teach Instead Of Tell - Good leaders know which skills are important for which team members to learn, and then invest a lot of their time and energy into ensuring that their employees attain all the skills that they need. This means that good leaders show instead of tell, and coach the people that work for them instead of ordering them around.
   
   
4. Encourage Personal Relationship Building - In addition to investing in the professional knowledge-base and trajectory of your employees, good leaders set aside time to connect with their team members on a personal level. Doing this will allow managers to not only build relationships with the people that work with them, but also to understand their coworker’s motivations, and how to best reach, encourage, and motivate them.
   
   
5. Share Their Success With Others - Like we teach our children, sharing is caring, a lesson that remains useful when discussing workplace dynamics just like it is inside a kindergarten classroom. Therefore it stands to reason that leaders need to share whatever acclaim and glory comes in the same way that 5-year-olds need to share their toys and cookies. With that in mind, remember that tooting your own horn and believing your own hype has never gotten any leader anywhere. Acknowledging the role that those around you placed in your success, however, can help your team members to feel valued, and make them more likely to continue to follow you moving forward.
   

These are simply a small subset of the skills that every good leader needs to develop, but it’s a start! Check in on my upcoming posts to learn more about what makes a good leader, and the skills and attributes every leader needs to display.