Leadership Skills are skills that help an individual to lead people into accelerating the potential of their abilities, thereby encouraging and helping them to believe in their own potential. Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi is said to be born with leadership skills, but it is not essential that students are born with the skills, and so students can always develop traits and characteristics that help them to become a focused and competent leader. However, it is important to always remember that leaders often fail, and it is in the way that they respond to failure which defines their potential to become a leader.
There are three key traits that help an individual to become a true leader and these are -
- Teachers must teach students to foresee oneself to lead and believe that they can advise, train and guide a group of people which becomes the ground principle to become a leader. Hence, teachers must train students to believe in their leadership skills.
- Teachers must train students to be committed towards the mission and vision of the school/organization that helps them understand one of the key leadership approaches in life.
- Lastly, teachers must teach students to have integrity and must be trained to stand by their words, ideologies and conduct themselves in a way that people develop respect and trust for their actions and words.
- Additional skills that teachers must train students include consistency, sincerity and integrity.
Key leadership qualities that students must develop include-
- A leader must behave like one and not involve himself/herself in trivial issues of misconduct such as gossiping, discussing personal issues, etc., and must stand by the virtues of credibility, truthfulness, helping nature and honest behaviour.
- A leader must not boost about being at a superior level than others and at the same time it is important to know that a leader knows more than just management principles. He/she has the value to guide not just processes but also people at both personal and professional level. One must remember that every leader has different personality traits, and the personality matrix can help us to understand how people with different personalities and behaviours still become successful leaders.
- A true leader is always open to feedbacks as it provides him/her the room for growth and development. Feedbacks play an integral role in team member development and hence, helps in improving the decision making. It also helps in developing inclusivity, positivity, collaboration and trust within the team as everyone feels responsible towards team growth and development. However, in certain scenarios this may lead to delayed decision making as the feedback may involve long discussions and resentment amongst those whose feedback could not be imbibed due to one or the other reason. Here it is important for the leader to have complete control over the process and strike a balance between acquiring different viewpoints and focusing on his/her own decision-making powers and insights. Feedbacks must be continuous and must also be analysed. Any feedback resulting in a positive outcome must be rewarded to push other to become more involved in the team processes.
We, at Thakur School of Global Education, firmly believe that schools play a pivotal role in shaping young minds into future leaders through effective learning and trainings. Hence, it is essential that teachers develop training and extra curriculum programs that contribute to the development of these future leaders.
