As an entrepreneur, your skills as a team leader are essential for today’s business, especially when the work usually is done by teams and their members. Before some time I write here on Entrepreneurship in a box about managerial skills, then about entrepreneurial skills, and now I want to cover something about team leader skills.
Many times entrepreneurs ask me this question: What are the most critical team leader skills? How they can start developing such skills that will help them grow the business?
Because of that, I will try to answer these questions here.
Today, any organizational form can’t run without strong teams. Strong teams become strong only if they have strong team leadership. Without leadership, you can not accept that your team will do the work in the right way.
Strong team leadership you will have only if you have strong team leaders with strong team skills.
Let’s look at the eight most crucial team leader skills for you as an entrepreneur.
#1: Visionary Skills
The first skill as a part of the required skills of a team leader that I want to cover here is visionary skills. We cannot expect to have a powerful team leader without a strong vision for the future.
With this type of skill, visionary team leader implements visionary leadership in their teams.
What does this mean?
They simply know how to communicate their vision to other team members, and in such a way their vision becomes a team’s vision.
Related: The Team Effectiveness Models and Different Roles in Teams That Win
#2: Human or interpersonal skills
We can’t talk about leadership skills without talking about the human side of team members, or better said interpersonal skills of the team leader.
This skill simply means that a team leader will know how to work with people. She is the team leader or leader of a group of people who form the team whose job is to do something in the business.
Team leaders need to motivate their members if they want to finish their job in the best possible way.
But, what is important here is that they need to have at a first a better understanding of different behavioral styles of team members if they want to choose the best possible leadership reaction. The different behavioral styles will require different team leaders’ actions and reactions.
On the other side, the best team leaders also know how, when, and to whom to give praise in the team working environment.
#3: Listening Skills
Next, as a part of the most crucial team leader skills, I want to mention listening skills. You cannot expect to be an excellent team leader without knowledge and the habit to listen to other people’s opinions.
Listening becomes one of the most important functions in today’s modern organizations.
Before concluding, a good team leader first listens to their team members, and after analysis of what she heard they conclude or decide.
Related: Unlocking the Secrets of Effective Management Style
#4: Creativity Skills
Because teams exist to solve problems and at the same time problem solving requires a high level of creativity of all team members, a good team leader must have skills related to creativity.
They need to use their own creativity in solving problems, but also in encouraging other team members to be more creative when they work in a team environment.
Creativity skills are an important part of an excellent team leader.
#5: Communication Skills as a Team Leader Skills
Teamwork is something that will need everyday communication between team members.
The leader is responsible to enable an effective communication environment in their teams because without this, they can’t manage effectively the members of the team.
Today, everything is based on a good communication process.
Excellent communication skills will improve the overall skills of a team leader.
#6: Organizational Skills
Leadership skills also need some type of organizational skills, because every team member will need to have their own responsibility and contribution to the work of the team.
How the process of the work can be organized to large extent will depend on the team leader’s organizational skills.
They will need to plan tasks, delegate tasks, control the work progress…
#7: Negotiation Skills
The next type of required leadership skill that I want to mention here is negotiation skills.
Teamwork will produce different proposals, different directions, and different actions. Something they will accept immediately, but some of them will slow down further work of the team.
An excellent team leader will need to know how to negotiate and facilitate the process if she wants to succeed.
#8: Time Management Skills
Time management skills are also an important part of overall team leader skills because she will be inevitably faced with the need to manage the time of the team members.
Good time management skills will increase the overall productivity of teamwork.
