Level up your leadership skills with ten insights from best-selling author Vanessa Van Edwards.
If you are a people manager, a leader, or aspire to become one, this article is packed with value for you!
The research behind leaders is straightforward; leaders THINK differently.
What distinguishes a true leader?
Vanessa Van Edwards started her journey when she shadowed a tech company CEO and walked with him through all-day meetings, conferences, and phone calls.
Listening to him strategize, challenge the status quo, and move his company forward through inspiring and precise communication made her curiosity about the leader’s way to rise.
Since then, she has studied thousands of leaders and concluded leadership can be thought!
Here are the 10 Leadership Skills Vannesa Van Edwards concluded every leader must possess.
#1. Go for the small Yes.
Ask small or easy-to-make requests before asking bigger ones to make your company and team members collaborate with you more effectively.
In a fascinating study where people in a neighborhood were asked to add a massive sign to their front yard saying -Drive carefully- , only 20% of people agreed to do it.
However, many more neighbors agreed when the same request was made, asking for a small sign in the window instead.
A few weeks later, the researchers asked those who agreed to the small window sign to put a massive one in their front yard, 76% agreed!
The study results show how we humans love to play along, feel part of the community, collaborate and how easily we build relations! Once the people had already agreed to add the small sign, they felt as if a relationship was created and did not want to disappoint or break the commitment when a more significant request was made.
Have a healthy combination of small, easy-to-make requests and major ones to boost that dopamine spike each time they complete one task for you by feeling helpful.
Bonus tip: Ask them to write their commitment to raising accountability.
#2. Praise your team members! Embrace the pygmalion effect.
Studies have shown that the best incentives are the ones that involve praise, not money!
We are social animals; humans seek approval from their communities.
Provide genuine, individual, personalized, and positive comments to your team members. Praise will create loyalty, commitment, belonging, and cooperation among teams.
#3. Appeal to emotion and intuition to influence your organization.
Fortune’s Greatest Leaders Persuasive Language analysis found that the most influential and renowned leaders appeal more to intuition and emotion than logic to influence their audiences.
Using feeling-evoking phrases and making your audience appeal to intuition does not mean stopping making decisions based on data-driven information. However, it shows us a lot about selling ideas, influencing people, and convincing colleagues to reach the same conclusion as you to move your plans ahead.
Humans prefer emotion and intuition-driven language to logic. Stories move the world. There is a reason why people binge on Netflix shows rather than The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
#4. Choose the right seat at the table.
Have clarity on your role in each meeting where your attendance is required.
Stay quiet, listen and analyze if another person has the spotlight of the meeting. Put your camera on if you want people to focus on you and what you have to share.
#5. Avoid empty calorie time.
Great leaders are deeply purposeful with their focus and use of their time.
If you allow being consumed by constant daily interruptions of issues that others can solve, you waste your precious analytical and sharpest mind capabilities in efforts of a lower return.
We do not have an infinite amount of energy, decision-making, and strategic capabilities to move our business forward. We reach a point of no return where we are too tired for our bright minds to give their best.
Understand this essential fact, focus on the things that only you can solve, learn to delegate, and work on the things that will bring your organization the more significant Return on Investment.
#6. Ask unconventional behavioral questions to your team to understand their needs, wants, and pain points so you can guide them to success.
- Tell me about your best and worst day at work.
- What is something you used to believe earlier in your career that you no longer believe?
The answers to these questions will reveal so much about the people you work with and help you strategize toward the most appropriate challenges for them to provide the most value to your company and team.
#7. Be fearless. Have stretch goals.
Feeling nervous about some of your objectives indicates greatness, conquering new lands, and progress.
High goal setters are happier with their results because they feel they are following their guts, living at their full potential, and embracing a no regret mindset.
Big goals lead to big rewards. Even if you lose, you feel like you have given your best!
#8. Abandon revenge. It is not worth it.
Fulfillment is about giving and providing value to our society and communities. Great leaders give, give and give.
If you feel resentment towards something or someone, write it down to get perspective.
Think about the bigger picture, and do not let small things bring you down. Put your ego aside and thrive towards positivity.
#9. Embody the body Language of the leaders.
Authentic, mesmerizing, magnetic leaders make a room listen when they speak. These leaders have unique body language that makes them confident, respected, and credible.
Interesting facts found about the current leaders of the TOP fortune companies:
#1. Leaders smile less. A smile is considered a sign of submission.
#2. Leaders move less; they are observers and invite others to move while analyzing and listening. Stillness is considered more powerful and in control.
#3.Leaders give powerful handshakes first when they meet and when seal deals.
#10. Invest in communication skills.
Leaders must be best-in-class communicators.
Leaders spent 75 to 80% of their working time communicating!
60% of consumers say that their perception of a CEO affects their opinion of a company.
Leaders need to serve as the best role models for stellar executive communication like never before.
I adore Vanessa Van Edwards and admire her work a lot, but many of those skills may be traits found in common among renowned leaders. However, there are other leadership traits that I am confident these extraordinary leaders have, which will take you to the mountain top of your career.
Invaluable traits leaders must have:
- Capability to inspire. Have an energizing, contagious and passionate vision that motivates and inspires others.
- Leaders must possess a proactive attitude.
- In this one, we agree; task delegation is essential to focus on what truly matters and will take your company to the next level.
- I 100% agree with her point about being bold. Leaders are accountable, fearless, and decisiveness. This will definitely allow you to unluck success you would not dare to envision playing safe.
- Walk the talk; great leaders live, breathe and embody the values they insist their team follow.