Skills of the 21st Century to propel your leadership potential.

For years, recruiters and HR Leaders have talked about “skills of the future”. It’s now no longer acceptable to simply forecast these skills... recruiters are now actively assessing your leadership potential in relation to these power skills. 

While many skills are considered teachable, it’s this set of power skills that will future-proof your career and leadership potential, and your ability to demonstrate them during the recruitment phase will help you stand out. 

Power Skills of the 21st Century:

CRITICAL THINKING

This skill relies on logical reasoning and is about being able to suggest innovative solutions or ideas, constantly looking for new ways of doing things and being open-minded to the best solutions. 

RESILIENCE

Your ability to bounce back when encountering challenges is key to success as a leader of the future. Responding calmly to frustrations, obstacles and opposition, coping and thriving under stress and being able to grow and move through challenges are cornerstones of a resilient leader.

TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

Keeping up to date with technological innovations is a challenge for everyone, but as a power skill, your ability to upskill and stay abreast of new or updated technology will help you keep at the front of the pack. Harnessing technological advances to your benefit for data, customer centricity and new ways of working will help keep teams agile. 

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Being aware of your own emotions and being able to control them as part of your emotional intelligence is consistently ranked as one of the most important skills of a leader. Your intuition - being aware of other people’s emotions - will help you lead with integrity and work better with others. Forming connections with those you work with shows you have empathy. 

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

As they say, change is the only constant. Seeing change as an opportunity to grow and innovate is a key attitude for leaders. Embrace and celebrate change, adjust your mindset and shift your expectations to adapt to new ways of working.

FLEXIBILITY/AGILITY

Flexibility is about being open to fluid solutions - working towards a balanced approach with tasks and adapting to shifting priorities within the business and team. As organisational dynamics shift to embrace flexibility, it’s important for leaders to embrace flexibility and promote agile thinking and working. 

CREATIVITY

Can you think outside the box? Creativity as a modern leadership skill is about your ability to realise future trends and work towards them; are you able to create new products, technologies and ways of working? 

ACTIVE LEARNING/GROWTH MINDSET

Having a growth mindset means you constantly search for ways to continue to learn and grow. You’re attuned to your current abilities and learn from your mistakes, trying to continually improve and strengthen your skills.

DECISION MAKING

Making effective decisions, and making them quickly, is a honed skill. It relies on your judgement and considers all parties (business, team customer) as well as an assessment of that decision on the environment (ie. morale). The best decision-makers are those who can make high-level decisions that cannot be made by technology, and harness their full arsenal of power skills to make the call. 

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Communication is a key skill of leaders and includes your ability to use the right tone and body language to portray messages. Being able to move between communication styles to suit individual people, or the message being delivered, is a sign of a good leader.

DIVERSITY & CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE

This is about being able to understand, respect and work effectively with others, despite differences. Leaders who seek to understand your colleagues and direct reports in turn are able to provide an inclusive and non-judgemental environment.