21 Types of Leadership Skills

John Spacey, updated on September 24, 2018

Leadership skills are abilities and knowledge areas that are useful in guiding and directing groups to achieve a set of goals. The following are foundational leadership skills.

Communication

The ability to communicate meaning using verbal, visual and non-verbal communication.

Storytelling

The ability to present information in an interesting, meaningful and engaging way using storytelling techniques.

Influencing

Influencing the ideas, decisions and strategies of others. This has three basic variations known as ethos, pathos and logos.

Organization

Orchestrating resources to achieve a result.

Strategy

The ability to formulate plans to achieve goals in a competitive and constrained environment.

Tactics

Moving on current conditions as they arise to seize opportunities and solve problems.

Decision Making

Making reasonable and timely decisions in an environment of uncertainty, risk and competition.

Time Management

Directing teams and resources to make productive and efficient use of time. For example, prioritization is a time management skill.

Networking

Developing social connections.

Relationship Building

Establishing and sustaining relationships to build relational capital.

Negotiating

Negotiating agreements with beneficial terms.

Delegating

Distributing resources and authority to team members to achieve objectives.

Setting Expectations

Clearly setting expectations with team members so that everyone knows what is expected of them.

Managing Expectations

Managing the expectations of stakeholders to clearly define what you will deliver and what you will not deliver.

Personal Resilience

Leaders are typically expected to remain composed, professional and productive in the face of stress and problems.

Organizational Culture

The ability to shape the norms, expectations and shared meaning of an organization or team.

Coaching

Providing direction to individuals to improve their performance and working to develop their knowledge, skills and character.

The direction and control of resources and teams. An extremely broad area that can include management of teams, performance, processes, capabilities, assets, change, risk, programs, projects, systems, operations, quality, communications and strategy.