# Employees who report to effective managers:
are 15.4x likely to be high performers.
are 13.4x more engaged.
are 3.2x more likely to have high intent to stay.
have 12.5x higher physical and mental well-being. – (Gartner Report)
Have you ever noticed what type of people make it to the top?
Are they subject matter experts or individuals with great ‘people skills’?
Ideally, they are both. They likely started out as subject experts, and developed into effective leaders.
What happens if you just keep focusing on your expertise?
Data from decades of work with ten thousands of executives all over the world shows that doing more of what you already do well yields only incremental improvement. Chances are that instead of getting ahead, you’ll just get stuck doing what you’re doing already.
To get ahead and proactively pursue a job that you want, you have to work on complementary skills that will magnify your expertise and make you an effective leader.
What to focus on instead?
One of the main categories of leadership effectiveness are leader’s character and interpersonal skills.
A good example is how technically skilled leaders get better when they learn to effectively communicate; or how engineers gets better results when they learn how to effectively listen and coach their team members.
Even the best of the global leaders recognise that while mastering all the right executive skills is absolutely necessary, they also realise the need for the development of soft skills to inspire their teams and drive the outcomes.
Employees and teams today want leaders they can look up to for inspiration and development
To get the leadership position that you want and sustain it over time, you will need to develop your interpersonal skills, as well as your character.
To begin developing your own interpersonal skills (people skills) you can ask your peers, bosses, team members or even clients for a feedback. You can observe the most successful people in your organisations. You can think about where you feel the most stuck at work.
Below are three categories of Interpersonal skills with three statements each, that can help think about what is needed to take your role to the next level:
1. Powerful Communication
Inspiring and Motivating Others
Trustworthiness
Involving Others
2. Building Relationships
Collaboration and Team Work
Developing Others
Self-development
3. Developing Others
Showing Concern and Consideration For Others
Providing Effective `Feedback And Development
Displaying Honesty and Integrity
Source:
‘Making Yourself Indispensable’ Zenger H. John, Folkman Joseph R, Edinger Scott K( 2011)HBR Resilience Edition.