Leadership skills can be honed through systematic and proven approaches

This post came out from The Straits Times (16 Jan 2012)
Title - You can lead

Some pointers that I've got are:
1. Defining leadership competencies
2. Assessing leadership potential
3. Developing self leadership
4. Excelling in team leadership
5. Engaging in opportunities

On Defining leadership competencies

• To develop leaders, we must understand what leaders really do. Leadership complements management and both are needed in an organization
• Key management activities are planning, organizing and controlling while leadership is about driving change. For change to happen, leaders are involved in setting direction, aligning and inspiring people.

On Assessing leadership potential

• Through 360 degree feedback, it helps to collect opinions about an individual's performance from peers, direct reports, his supervisor, and even his customers. This provides a complete picture of what competencies the potential leader needs to develop further.
• In an assessment centre, the exercises carried out include a job-related assessment and in-person simulations. These can be mixed and matched based on the competencies defined for a specific leadership role and are administered by expert assessors.

On Developing Self leadership

• A high level of emotional intelligence which encompasses self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills is needed. 
• Emotional intelligence can be learnt but it takes a sincere desire, time and commitment. While classroom training programmes can impart the knowledge, coaching and feedback is often necessary to embed emotional intelligence behavioral changes. 

On Excelling in team leadership

• A coercive approach to managing is outdated. A successful leader is one who understands that people are different and complex, with unique motivation and satisfaction requirements.
• Hence, a leader must have great people skills to create high performance teams.

On Engaging in opportunities

• To embed the leadership competencies they have learnt, potential leaders must have opportunities to try them out and develop them fully. 
• While the business environment is demanding and sometimes unforgiving, potential leaders can seek out leadership opportunities in low risk, non judgmental environments by serving in roles in clubs and societies. 

Yours,
Something Small Thinking Big