Life Skills How to develop leadership skills

LIFE SKILLS How to develop leadership skills

1 ‘Are you a leader or a follower?’ is a classic interview question. What do you think would be the best way to answer this question? Say why.

2 Read the two blog posts and decide which of these signs Lily and Dylan showed.

FIVE SIGNS YOU’RE A RELUCTANT LEADER

1□ You find it a bit embarrassing to be in the limelight.

2□ People often come to you for advice, but it always surprises you when they do.

3□ You can think of a lot of people who’d be better at being a leader than you would.

4□ People who like leading others aren’t the kind of people you tend to get on with.

5□ You are really good at thinking of excuses as to why you can’t take a leadership role.

An accidental leader

I’ve always been quite shy and retiring, but last year I found myself accidentally becoming a leader, and I actually enjoyed the experience.

My history class went on a school trip to

Berlin. As the trip had been organised by the history department, the teachers who went didn’t speak any German … but guess who did?

My father is German, so we grew up speaking both languages at home. Once the teachers realised I was fluent in German, they delegated all the tasks of speaking to me.

To begin with I was horrified. I’ve never seen myself as very assertive, and now I was having to negotiate with strangers and generally take a lot of responsibility for everything going smoothly (or not).

I worked my socks off on that trip, but in terms of building my confidence it paid dividends, and now I’m even thinking about training to become a translator!

Lily

Out of the back seat

I didn’t really think that I was cut out to be a leader, and that was, to be honest, just fine with me – I wasn’t exactly itching to take on all the extra work involved in leadership either.

But little did I know that life had other plans for me.

It all started in my first job straight out of school. I was working for a charity, and they had a ‘suggestions box’ in reception. One day,

I had a cool idea for an app that could pair up people with a bit of time on their hands with old people in the community who needed help in their homes, so I slipped it into the box. My boss loved the idea so much that he put me in charge of implementing it. I just wanted the charity to be able to raise more money, but I found that I actually enjoyed not taking a back seat for once.

The rest, as they say, is history. I’m now local area manager for the charity and I absolutely love it!

Dylan

3 10.14 Listen to Mariam, an educational consultant, talking about leadership skills. Decide if she would agree (A) or disagree (D) with the statements.

1 □ Leadership skills are only important when you reach management-level positions at work.

2 □ Some people aren’t really cut out to be leaders.

3 □ Teamwork is important in companies these days.

4 □ People who are reluctant to lead are generally not very effective in that role.

5 □ A lot of people have a fairly stereotypical idea of what makes a good manager.

6 □ If you are a good follower, you’re unlikely to make a good leader.

4 Complete the advice in the Life Skills box with one word in each gap. There is one extra word.

attributes calling envisage failures shy step styles win

• Even if you don’t think you have a 1 to be a leader, or you can’t 2 yourself in that role, give it a go – you may surprise yourself. Learn about well-known leaders and study which of their

3 ___ made them good leaders.

• Think about people around you who are leaders – observe them and analyse how they are able to 4 ___ people over and why people listen to them.
• Learn about different leadership 5 and try to identify your own.
• If there is an opportunity to 6 _ up and lead, don’t 7 _ away from it, but try to take it on with enthusiasm and think about how much you can learn from this experience.

5 Work in pairs. Choose someone you know personally who is a good leader and make some notes on what makes them effective.

6 Do the task below.

Prepare a short presentation about a well-known leader.

• Choose someone you personally admire.
• Use at least two different sources to find out information about them.

  – In what ways is/was this person an effective leader? – What do/did they (or others led by them) achieve? – How would you describe this person’s leadership style? – How do/did other people feel about them? – Are there any ways in which this person could perhaps have been a better leader? Say why.

• Finish by explaining why you chose this person and how you think they might influence your own leadership style in the future.