The growth associated with being a leader for a team, a company, or a department isn’t something that is a one and done. You don’t reach some magical point where you’ve become the best leader you can be and have nothing left to learn. There are always new skills or techniques, and you can always improve in areas where you may already have strengths. 

Below are the top 5 leadership skills you should adopt or improve in 2022. These skills will help to improve your company culture and team satisfaction. While these are all skills that were important before 2022 and will continue to be important after, as we emerge from a post COVID world these fundamentals need to be stressed and prioritized within the organization. 

Investing in Professional Development

This year, put a focus on investing in your people. Put dollars behind their professional development and give them the opportunity to grow into stronger leaders and coworkers. I think this should be of particular focus for small to medium-sized businesses that structurally have less internal “growth” potential to offer their people in terms of positions. 

I recently heard a story about a company that had one of their most seasoned staff resign because she simply didn’t feel challenged any longer. She felt she had nowhere else within the company to grow. Upon giving her resignation the president of the company asked her if she would stay if he would give her one of their largest and most challenging clients. She decided to stay. A couple of months and quite a few mistakes and missteps later, she came back to her boss and thanked him for fighting for her to stay because the previous couple of months had been some of the most challenging in her career and she was loving every minute of it. Bottom line, you have to give your people the opportunity to grow in their professional careers. 

Focus on Problem Solving, not Fixing

This is something that I personally as a leader have struggled with. This heading was actually my commitment to myself this year. By the time you’ve gotten into a leadership position, you have dealt with your fair share of issues. This also means that you’ve tried to solve some of these issues and failed enough times to determine the “best way” to solve them. This can make it very difficult when you see people on your team struggling with the same or similar issue not to swoop in and fix it. 

This is me telling you to STOP IT! I had a tendency to do this, but this is not going to help your team. By fixing issues for them you are cutting them off at the knees. We learn through our failures. So instead of allowing them to go through that discovery process and problem-solving themselves, they will just bring their issues to you to fix. So when you see someone on your team (or in life) struggling, walk beside them as they navigate the issue, don’t fix it for them. 

Building a Culture of Trust

Trust needs to be at the foundation of a strong culture, but this is hard work. A team needs to be able to rely on one another. As we move into remote and hybrid work environments, however, it’s especially important. There are still plenty of leaders out there that have the “when the cat’s away, the mice will play” mentality. Welcome to 2022, it is time to retire this logic. 

If you don’t trust your team to get the job done, you’ve probably made some bad hires. The way people work has fundamentally changed. The pandemic shifted mindsets because it forced us to slow down and pay attention to the things that are really important to us. The mental light bulb went off and people are now realizing that our lifes’ don’t have to (and shouldn’t) come second to our job.  

Be understanding of this, give them the flexibility to take care of “life stuff” in the middle of the day, maybe they want to workout because they always have kids around and don’t get any other time. Who cares? At the end of the day, as long as expectations are met and the job is getting done, does it really matter what hours of the day they’ve chosen to do it? 

Committing to Your Team without Over Committing Yourself

This has been an issue in just about every place I have ever worked. Your team needs their leader, they need structure, and they deserve your attention. Early in your career, how many times did you have a boss tell you they would meet with you and give you time only to have that meeting rescheduled 3 different times and then a month had passed before that meeting ever actually happened? This situation is far too common and it has to stop. Managers should have regularly scheduled meetings with their teams and direct reports individually, and those meetings should be treated as a priority over everything else. 

The common rebuttal to this is, “Well I have other (revenue-producing) work that needs to get done” or “I already have back-to-back meetings scheduled today, so let’s just do it on a day that is less busy”. My response to the first excuse is, if you don’t have people it’s hard to generate revenue, so if you take care of and prioritize your people they will be more committed and empowered to do the work and you will maintain a skilled team instead of the expenses and efficiency gaps that come with turnover. For the second excuse, set boundaries, my friend. Days full of meetings are exhausting and you find yourself at the end of the day feeling mentally spent and unaccomplished because you didn’t have time to get any actual work done. Try to set a max of no more than 3 meetings in one day. I promise you it is more than enough. Everyone is busy, and your time doesn’t have more value than someone else’s. Don’t overcommit yourself to so many things that you can’t be there for your team. They need you!

Leading with Empathy

This is one of those last, but certainly not least situations. Empathy is probably one of my most used buzz words. Anyone that knows me well knows I’m a big fan of Brené Brown and she talks a lot about empathy and vulnerability. Check out this really great little video about empathy from one of her talks. No empathetic response begins with, “At least…”. 

So often in a work environment, it comes down to, “you have a job to do and you need to get the job done”. But when we see a teammate struggling, we need to take a beat and find a moment to have a heart. We are all messy, we all have a lot going on in our lives and that stuff, whether we like it or not, comes to work with us. AND THAT IS OK. It’s our job as leaders to be able to see the situation from all sides, and as I said above in the problem-solving section to walk beside our teams as they are navigating struggles. They don’t need us to fix it, they just need us to understand. 

The world has a shortage of strong leaders right now. People need leaders who will put their people over profit. Furthermore, they need a leader that understands that when you prioritize your people, the profit will follow. I’m passionate about people having more options of great places to work and would love to work with your team to build a people-first culture of accountability. Let’s chat! Or you can follow me on Facebook or LinkedIn for tidbits or sign up for the newsletter below!