Recognition- One of a Leader’s Key People Skills

Good and great leaders must have strong, what I call ‘get along skills’ as part of their foundation and preparation.  To advance in work and in life we should pursue the development of our leadership and other people skills. Participating in available training is an important part of this direction.  While doing this though, it is important to keep our minds and hearts open to allowing a change within.  Also focusing internally on the qualities you wish to have as a leader.

I work with a number of organizations today that are providing leadership training to all of their managers, supervisors and team leads with the strategy of trying to get everyone literally ‘on the same page’.   The bottom line of course to the training is an enhanced workplace, improved morale and employees who want to stay.

Unlike our technical skills, we don’t get a lot of preparation through our education system on our people skills.  We’re expected to simply have them when we show up for work, or take on a new job.  This explains a great deal of the dysfunctional social interactions that we witness in workplaces today.  We see many people in our workplaces stumbling through their leadership and customer service roles by trial and error.  The better alternative to learning by our mistakes is to be proactive and take the initiative to develop these skills and benefit from having them now.

Customers today have options, to do business with us or to go elsewhere.  Similarly our good staff members have options to work either here or elsewhere. Understandably customers and staff will go to where they are treated appropriately, fairly and with respect and appreciation… most often these are the defining factors.  This is why development of these skills is such a sound investment for any business, and in particular why our people skills should be grounded in giving recognition.

Recognize well!