Core Leadership Skills vs. Adaptive Leadership Skills

Have you thought about the difference in leadership skills? Such as the difference between the skills that got you the leadership position versus the ones that will make you a great leader? Did you know there was a difference?

The challenge as leaders is that often after we are placed into a leadership position we think we don’t have to keep learning and growing. We have arrived and we just need to put into practice what got us here – right? No, not hardly. Once you land in a leadership position – that is when “school” starts. You have to learn a whole new set of skills to become a truly effective leader.

According to the authors of Leadership 2.0, most of us have a Core set of leadership skills that got us the leadership job: 1. STRATEGY: Vision, Acumen, Planning, and Courage to Lead. 2.ACTION: Decision Making, Communication,and Mobilizing Others, and 3. RESULTS:Risk Taking, Results Focus, and Agility.

However, they go on to say that the truly great leaders have Adaptive leadership skills consisting of: 1. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, andRelationship Management. 2. ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE: Decision Fairness, Information Sharing and Outcome Concern. 3. CHARACTER: Integrity, Credibility, and Values Differences, and  4. DEVELOPMENT: Lifelong Learner andDeveloping Others.

Most of us struggle with just the core leadership skills and so often do not learn the adaptive skills. If you want to really make great impact on the world around you, then you need to add the adaptive leadership skills to your toolbox.