Ascending to leadership positions requires years of building technical knowledge, analytical skills, and experience managing different situations. And yet, good leadership requires more than know-how experience. It requires working on skills that are rarely called out in job applications, which take take years to develop. Here are 3 skills great leaders commonly showcase:

#1 Active Listening

Leading teams requires ongoing communications. One of the toughest realities to learn when transitioning to a leading role is that your job becomes dealing with ongoing problems. Our immediate action in the face of issues is to jump in and provide the answers. As a leader, you need to learn to empower your teams to troubleshoot so they fix the issues and grow as professionals in the process.

Active listening, the ability to listen to understand rather than to reply, allows leaders to determine what is needed from them. For some scenarios, leaders will be expected to take charge and lead the solution. However, in most cases, leaders are better off listening and structuring conversations in a way that it allows their team to remove noise and own the solution.

To practice active listening leaders can:

• Avoid interrupting: it’s tempting to jump in and complete ideas. However, the more you listen the more information you can gather to assess what’s an issue and what’s noise.

• Ask leading questions: this will help team members vocalize challenges, build a full picture, and start developing solutions.

• Rephrasing: repeating what you understand helps your team members know if they’ve communicated clearly and get you on the same page.

Team leaders are not expected to be heroes that save the day. They are expected to be facilitators that enable growth and clarity.

#2 Time Management

As your responsibilities grow, you will be required to be in more meetings and more emails. If you don’t become purposeful about your time you will find wasting time on items that do not merit your attention. Some steps to improve your time management as a leader include:

• Email Batching: don’t spend all day glued to your inbox, pivoting your time with each new email that enters. Instead, dedicate specific times to check on emails. This will give you structure, and will help you set healthy boundaries. Take care of urgent emails first, and those that take less than 2 minutes to send. For non-urgent requests, a confirmation of receipt and expected ETA will suffice.

• Request Meeting Agendas: meetings should not be the place to find out what your time will be used for. Agendas will help you determine whether to attend the meeting or delegate it to a team member that can provide better answers.

• Own Your Calendar: your calendar should not be subject to everyone else’s need. Own your time and protect your most optimal time of the day while leaving open spots for people that need to book you. Make sure to leave spots for your team members to reach you but be purposeful about your time.

#3 Writing Clearly:

Whether it’s through emails or messaging platforms, written communication is a constant in the corporate world. Leaders need to be clarifiers and allow conversations to progress to a solution. Mastering clear writing becomes a necessity as your role as a larger impact across the organization. Here are some small steps to write clearly:

• Actionable Email Subject Lines: help the receiver know what they can expect from your email before even reading it. For example:

  • [POV Needed] Revenue 2025 Forecast.

  • [Due 10/12]: Performance Report.

  • [Alignment Needed]: Strategic Roadmap 2025

• Get To The Point: start your note with what the reader needs to know first, then provide contextual data.

• Write in Bullets. This will force you to write in short and direct form, and it will allow users to pinpoint areas of concerns. It’s also a good way to break down complexities into smaller parts.

• Include Action Items: let the reader know exactly what they should do after reading your note

There will be times where a long email is needed such as when dealing with crisis. In this cases, try to break your note into smaller chunks.

There more you improve in the areas above the better you will be at creating an environment that works for you without neglecting your team.