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Everyone can develop personal leadership skills even if they are not assuming a leadership/management role in the company. When people develop personal leadership, they become more effective in all the dimensions of life, and this translates into increased performance and productivity at work as well.
My first training in leadership was a personal leadership development training that featured learning material combined with weekly coaching. This lasted for three months with additional follow-up sessions. This training increased my awareness of first developing personal leadership before becoming effective at managing others. It also inspired me to want all my employees to learn these skills and to eventually become a trainer/coach myself.
Some of the personal leadership skills I am referring to are:
Responsibility
This is a life skill everyone needs to learn to fully develop their potential. We need to learn that whatever we are experiencing is a result of choices we have made. If we don’t like where we are at in our lives, we need to come to terms with what we chose to get there.
Attitude
We can choose to be negative or positive. Of course, some people tend to have a more negative outlook on life and other more positive. But we can all choose to work on seeing the brighter side of things.
Appreciation
Appreciating what we have now makes the journey of life more pleasurable as we are able to relax into the moment and feel good with ourselves. Joy and contentment come from inside and if we can learn how to deepen that connection to inner fulfillment, we will be happier.
Planning
Planning prevents poor performance is an old expression and is very true. Planning is a skill that can improve over time.
Organization
When we take the time to plan, we can organize ourselves better and then execute our actions more productively.
Goal setting
This ties in well with planning as taking our plans and turning them into goals sharpens the blade of effectiveness.
Compassion
When we develop our ability to know ourselves and accept our strengths and weaknesses, we can develop compassion for others and is an important leadership skill.
Communication
People who develop personal leadership learn how to express themselves clearly and listen to others. This improves relationships and builds trust.
These personal leadership skills listed above are some of many that are really life skills to develop to be more effective, productive, and fulfilled in all aspects of life.
When an employee receives training in these areas from their employer and sees the benefits from developing themselves, it creates a unique appreciation for their employer and appreciation that the employer is investing in their growth.
When these skills are incorporated into the values of the organization and even into performance reviews, it becomes a way to create a common language around the notion of success and high performance.
When considering training for employees it is best to be pro-active. That means creating a training plan for each employee or team. You could also start with a training needs analysis and plan your training strategically. Check out my article and video on how to do an employee training needs analysis and download the free worksheet.
When planning training, think of four areas of employee development.
Job skills such as technical skills or professional skills
Interpersonal skills such as communicating, listening, presenting, etc.
Personal development skills such as being responsible, being trustworthy, goal setting, etc,
Team skills such as leadership, facilitation, problem solving, coaching, confronting
Some of these skills can be combined in one or two types of programs, but training should be ongoing as implementing new skills takes time and refreshment is always a good thing.
Job Skills
These are the essential skills people need to do the job and have had formal education and training in most cases. Skills such as computer programming, machine operation, accounting, human resources etc.
Interpersonal Skills
There are often referred to as people skills. Everyone needs these to greater and lesser degrees and are skills that can be learned and developed through training and coaching. This includes active listening, presenting, negotiating, communicating ideas, confronting etc.
Personal Development Skills
There are skills to develop oneself and become more mature in all dimensions of life. I have explained the dimension of life in detail in this article and video. There are seven dimensions of life and the higher one can function in each of these dimensions the more people can be productive and effective. Personal development skills include goal setting and planning.
Teamwork Skills
These skills like problem solving techniques, facilitating meetings, leadership, presenting solutions to management, consensus building, mutual coaching, giving feedback, conflict resolution, etc.
Some of the interpersonal and teamwork skills can be covered together but not always. For example, a team of customer service need to develop interpersonal skills to deal with all types of people in different situations. So, the focus might need to be there rather than developing teamwork skills. On the other hand, teamwork skills always need to include interpersonal skills.
These skill areas cover the gamut of people development and address the total person. It even covers mental and physical health as this is an integral part of personal development and the dimensions of life. As mentioned, I suggest using my training needs analysis worksheet to start planning your employee training.
Motivation for the type of work is the foundation for employee engagement. If someone enjoys doing the types of tasks most required for producing good performance, then that is the number one element to keep them engaged.
If the key tasks fall outside someone’s high interest areas, no matter how great a work environment you create or how many benefits you provide, ultimately, they will not find job satisfaction.
I recently checked my agenda one morning and saw I had screening interviews scheduled for a client and I felt a sense of excitement. I realized that this is an activity I enjoy as it is related to one of my top three motivational work interests, people.
My other work interests are Enterprising and Creative. The three that are lower are Technical, Financial/Admin and Mechanical. In fact, Financial/Admin is so low it poses a problem as a business owner as I avoid tasks related to that area of interest.
I did not need to do a study to discover this. I learned about my top three interest areas through the PXT Select assessment that I also use with my clients. Combining the feedback from the assessment along with self-observation deepened my self-awareness and why I get excited about doing certain tasks and avoid others.
Here is the explanation from the Quick Reference Guide produced by Wiley, the creator of the PXT Select. You can use this to self-assess and determine your top three occupational interests out of the sixth. Read through each description of the interest area and score yourself on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest motivation). After doing that review again and decide on your top 3.
Interests
We’ve identified six interest areas that are effective in describing people’s motivation and potential satisfaction with their jobs. Each interest area reflects a group of related aspects of a job or task.
Creative
A Creative interest suggests the enjoyment of imaginative and artistic activities. It often involves personal expression, emphasis on aesthetics, and novel ways of solving problems, producing ideas, and designing new things.
Enterprising
An Enterprising interest suggests the enjoyment of leadership, presenting ideas, and persuading others. Individuals with this interest may desire responsibility and exercise initiative, ambition, and resourcefulness.
Financial/Admin
A Financial/Admin interest suggests the enjoyment of working with numbers, organizing information, and office routines such as record-keeping and completing paperwork. It could indicate an eye for detail and a desire for accuracy.
People Service
A People Service interest suggests the enjoyment of collaboration, compromise, and helping others. It may indicate a strong sense of empathy and support and a knack for bringing people together.
Mechanical
A Mechanical interest suggests the enjoyment of building and repairing things and working with machinery or tools. Individuals with this interest may like tasks that involve using their hands, being outdoors, and/or breaking a sweat.
Technical
A Technical interest suggests the enjoyment of learning technical material, interpreting complex information, and solving abstract problems. Individuals with this interest may enjoy working with numbers, data, and/or computer programs.
One you decide on your top three, you can verify that by gauging how you feel about different tasks and where they belong. You can then observe others and see if you can gain insight into what motivates them.
Having engagement with the job begins with the tasks or activities but if the job becomes stagnant or routine, many people can become disengaged. So, it is important to keep the job challenging so people feel they are learning and deepening their skill set. Once you have the right person for the tasks and you keep them challenged, the other elements of engagement that revolve around external activities such as corporate events, community involvement, team development etc. will be icing on the cake.
