Even if you don’t want to be “the boss”… You still need leadership skills.
“Raise your hand if you’re a leader,” I say to the students in my leadership class. Two students put their hands up, awkwardly looking around the sea of students across the room who show no intention of asserting their leadership. I have to admit, I was pretty surprised. This was a leadership class, after all. After two more sections of similarly reluctant respondents, I knew I had my work cut out for me in this leadership class. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a leader? Being seen as a leader comes with benefits like power, prestige, and status (Van Vugt, 2006). But, somewhere along the way, leadership lost its way and the risks associated with leadership seem to outweigh the benefits (Tussing, 2018). But here’s the thing – even if you don’t want to lead, you still need leadership skills in order to positively impact others.
Leadership skills are human skills, and they are workplace skills. If you would like a job or want to be a good human, you need skills to help you work with others. For example, the original skills approach to leadership suggested that leaders need conceptual skills to create organizational meaning, technical skills to do the non-leading part of the job, and human skills to engage others. Whereas technical skills are more important earlier in one’s career, conceptual skills become more important as one moves up the organizational ladder. Most importantly, human skills are equally important at all levels of the job. These human skills include:
• Being aware of one’s own and other’s perspectives
• Helping team members work cooperatively to achieve group goals
• Creating an atmosphere of trust and empowerment among the group
More recent models of leadership focus on similar skills. As you move up the organization, you might need to invest in learning how to create a vision and drive change, but in the early stages of one’s career, learning to be a leader means being able to do one’s job and support others.
Imagine you see a friend or co-worker being mistreated… leadership skills will assist you in supporting them. Imagine you want to influence others to support a cause you believe in… you need leadership skills. Imagine your team is struggling with a difficult task at work that can impact your success… yep! Leadership skills are needed here, too. Most importantly, leadership skills are developed over time. We might be born with some predispositions toward certain behaviors, but all leaders agree that leadership is developed through a combination of knowledge attainment, watching examples, and trying out behavior. This is why the Center for Leadership at ýĻƷ provides access to all types of leadership learning through our direct programs and through our many affiliate programs on campus.
Even recognizing that leadership can be learned, some people choose not to invest in their leadership skills because they see leadership as going to the “dark side.” But, and this is important, although the most despicable acts in history can be attributed to leaders so too can every courageous and heroic act. Moreover, it is only through leadership that we avoid the tyranny that constantly threatens humanity. We need leaders – and leadership is within you.
Still, others reject leadership because leader-identity endorsement, a concept that Cunningham, Sonday, and Ashford (2022) define as accepting ‘leader’ as an accurate self-descriptor can make one feel threatened in various ways. They found that people fear appearing bossy or dictatorial, fear being different from the rest of the group, and fear being seen as unqualified (Cunningham, Sonday, & Ashford, 2022). Among the three, fear of being seen as unqualified emerged as the most important deterrent to engaging in leader-identity endorsement. To this I say, all the more reason to come and invest in your leader skill development so you don’t have to worry whether you’re unqualified. Ironically, the people who have the least skill and are the most power-hungry are jumping into leadership roles left and right because they aren’t concerned about how others see them or whether they will be effective. Think about this – these narcissists may be your future boss if you don’t lean into your leadership.
Today, I start my leadership classes with, “Raise your hand if leadership is within you,” a prompt that encourages many more hands to face skyward. And then we start a class where students can gain some knowledge, learn some skills, and see all of the gifts that they can offer the world as leaders.