Leadership Skills: Top 10 Skills Needed for 2021
When was the last time you completed a skills check for yourself? And, did you check against your career plan and did this highlight gaps? With the upheaval everyone has faced during the previous 12 months, there are new leadership opportunities available for everyone, if you have the right focus and the skills to match! It is essential that you revisit your career plan now and consider what skills are needed to take you to success as a leader in 2021. This could either be in your own business, as a manager or potentially a CEO!
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”- John F. Kennedy
There are shortfalls in Leadership skills in Australian
The SAL Report “Do Australian Leaders Have what it takes” shows that Australian organisations should be concerned about the state of leadership and management capability. Effective leadership requires the mastery of management fundamentals, including performance monitoring, target setting, and use of incentives. As defined in Chapter 6, “Australian leaders, on the whole, have not mastered the fundamentals of management, though there is some variation in management practices by industry, workplace size, organisational legal status, and workplace age.”
Here are the Top 10 job skills needed for tomorrow
Kate Whiting a Senior Writer for the World Economic Forum outlined in her October 2020 article “These are the top 10 job skills of tomorrow,” that half of us will need to reskill in the next five years, especially with the “double-disruption” of the economic impacts of the pandemic and increasing automation that is transforming jobs. That’s according to the third edition of the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, which maps the jobs and skills of the future, tracking the pace of change and direction of travel. But the very technological disruption that is transforming jobs can also provide the key to creating them – and help us learn new skills.
“We have the tools at our disposal. The bounty of technological innovation which defines our current era can be leveraged to unleash human potential,” says the Forum’s Founder and Executive Chairman, Professor Klaus Schwab. “We have the means to reskill and upskill individuals in unprecedented numbers, to deploy precision safety nets which protect displaced workers from destitution, and to create bespoke maps which orient displaced workers towards the jobs of tomorrow where they will be able to thrive.”
The Forum estimates that by 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines. But even more jobs – 97 million – may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms. Greater adoption of technology will mean in-demand skills across jobs change over the next five years, and skills gaps will continue to be high. For those workers who stay in their roles, the share of core skills that will change by 2025 is 40%, and 50% of all employees will need reskilling (up 4%).
Critical thinking and problem-solving top the list of skills that employers believe will grow in prominence in the next five years. These have been consistent since the first report in 2016. But newly emerging this year are skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. This year, data from LinkedIn and online learning platform Coursera has allowed the Forum to track with unprecedented granularity the types of specialized skills are needed for the jobs of tomorrow, which are in demand across multiple emerging professions. Among these ‘cross-cutting’ skills are specialized skills in product marketing, digital marketing and human computer interaction. Here they are:
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Complex problem solving
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Creativity, originality and initiative
- Leadership and social influence
- Technology use, monitoring and control
- Technology design and programming
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Reasoning, problem solving and ideation
Want to use your new skills and become a CEO?
In my blog “10 things that you need to know to become a top CEO,” one of my favourite sayings (as you’ve probably noticed) is ‘Leadership is an Attitude, not a Title’. This rings true for anyone in a leadership role, especially those in the position of CEO. Just having that title isn’t enough to make you an effective and successful CEO – so what does? Here’s a list of 10 things that you need to know to become a top CEO:
- Clarify what makes you who you are
- Serve as the example for your leaders
- Remember that you are the representative of your company
- A diverse team is key
- Establish a positive company culture
- Mastering relationships at every level
- Open and honest communication is fundamental
- Do what’s right, even if it’s not the easy option
- Be flexible and ready to adapt to change
- Never lose your desire to learn
A CEO has a wide variety of responsibilities, which means they must be knowledgeable in a range of areas and skills. A successful CEO is more than just ‘the boss’; they must have the right attitude and do the above things to ensure not only their own success but the success of the company and all those within it. For further reading on the importance of learning as a leader, check out my blog Why Learning is Critical to Great Leadership, and find out how a negative company culture can affect your business in the blog Weak Company Culture is Behind the Decline in Employee Loyalty.
Here’s your chance for skills acceleration!
Who would love to join me in 2021 to be a Leader for the future of work and also become verified in Empathy, Communication, Collaboration, Drive and Initiative from Veriskills. I am delivering a 20 week group and online program to build GREAT LEADERS starting in February.
LeadershipHQ are excited to be working with Veriskills where our Leadership Essentials Program where you are awarded for Collaboration outcomes. The Leadership Essentials Program is either a self-paced (not Veriskills) or a group and one on one leadership program which takes 6-9 months and gives participants the human capabilities, tools, skills and resources to be the best person and leader they can be. The Human Capability outcomes you will be awarded on completion of our Leadership Essentials program are as follows:
- Initiative and Drive (Level 3)
- Communication (Level 3)
- Collaboration (Level 3)
- Empathy (Level 3)
Click here to learn more about Veriskills™, and the Human Capability Framework.
This program and coaching will take your leadership skills to the next level!
Leadership isn’t easy and sometimes we need help. I am always here.
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Get in touch today to learn more about building leadership skills and set yourself up for success!
Stay Kind. Stay Courageous.
Sonia x
