Tools and Activities to help improve Leadership Skills
Leadership is a complex relational position. Not everyone is blessed with the skills to
· Communicate effectively
· Motivate others
· Recognize unique strengths and talents and put them to good use
· Create meaning and purpose to inspire and create collective intent
· Grow and coach others into improving their performance
· Adapt to an ever-changing world
From a positive psychology perspective, it is essential to understand what you bring as a leader, and how to identify the strengths of others, both to help them shine and to help you with areas of leadership activity that are not your strengths. The second most important thing is probably being able to help people see meaning in their work, and to be able to talk about things in ways that create hope, optimism, meaningfulness and purpose, even when the world is challenging.
We recommend these five tools to help with some of the challenges of leadership
Use these cards to help you pinpoint the unique combination of positive leadership attributes that you bring to the challenge of leadership. With attributes ranging from from burning ambition to single-mindedness
Leadership is about inspiring others. Why should people follow you? How are you inspiring to others? Use these cards to discover what it is about you that inspires others to listen, to follow, to excel? Identify how you like to exercise key features of effective leadership like credibility or drive
Use any of our packs of strengths cards to help you and your team all identify what you bring to the team challenge. You can also use them to help identify how you express your strengths through your leadership. When people understand their strengths, they can be at their best more of the time.
In this ever-changing world resilience is a must. Use this pack to help you understand what helps you exercise resilience in the face of challenges, setbacks or disappointments. You can also use them in a team exercise to boost team resilience
Values are motivators and drivers of behaviour, the source of passion. Use these cards to help you understand what motivates you to keep turning up everyday to lead your team and make the world a better place. Use them to identify team values.
For more advanced leadership skills work, you might be interested in our Leadership Toolkit, which includes a strategy development game and a guide to conducting difficult feedback conversations in a positive way.