Whether you mentor just one colleague or lead an entire team, when you’re working closely with others, leadership skills are key to success. These can help you to boost morale, build trust, engage your staff, and enable innovation.
That is why it is so important that your resume reflects your impressive leadership skill set.
But with such a small window to grab the recruiter’s attention, you can’t leave this to chance. You need to be very selective and specific about which skills you include and how.
So which are the most important leadership skills, and what should you include on your resume to boost your chances of securing an interview?
Communication skills
Communication skills are essential to everyone in the workplace, and these skills are regularly placed at the top of a recruiter’s wish list.
However, when you’re hoping to secure a leadership position, proving you’ve got strong communication skills is even more important.
Beyond just being able to write an email or hold a conversation, senior employees may also have to give presentations, hold performance reviews, speak with big stakeholders, oversee entire departments, and more.
With this in mind, hiring managers are looking for those with strong written and verbal communication skills, as well as those who are able to understand non-verbal cues, listen actively, and provide contextual and visual communication.
This includes being able to be positive, speak clearly and with confidence, and be assertive where required.
Your written skills must also be multifaceted, as a good leader will likely have to produce reports and emails, deal with complaints, draft policies, and more. Therefore, being able to write for a range of topics and audiences is critical.
Decision making
The ability to make careful and informed decisions can increase efficiency and support organizational growth. That is why this is such a sought-after skill in leadership positions.
Not only this, but leaders who can make good decisions in a timely manner show other vital skills like organization, confidence, and the ability to keep a clear head in challenging situations. This includes weighing up possible risks and embracing clarity to pick the best option from the choices provided.
Good leaders will have to make decisions regularly and must prove they can drive the company toward long-term success in doing so.
What’s more, this also strengthens and showcases your communication skills, as consulting with different people may play a key role in gathering the required information to make the right decisions.
Whether you mentor just one colleague or lead an entire team, leadership skills are absolutely key.
Delegation
When taking on a leadership position, you’ll have to juggle multiple tasks (some of which we’ve already mentioned above). This means you need to be able to focus on the bigger picture and support others.
As such, you don’t have time to take on all the smaller tasks, and some jobs will need to be delegated to your team or reports.
But it’s not just about giving out orders; it’s also about setting reasonable deadlines, ensuring they have all the tools and resources they need to succeed, and empowering your team to do the best job they can.
With this in mind, delegation is far more than setting tasks, and it’s certainly not about micromanaging, so you must prove you can effectively assign roles and trust others to do a good job. More on this next.
Trustworthiness
Leaders need to make their team feel comfortable speaking up, sharing ideas, or raising concerns. Not only this, but they must create an atmosphere of mutual respect if they hope to run the team effectively and implement their strategic plans.
In order to do this, they must inspire trust in themselves, making this one of the most important leadership skills out there and a quality that most employers will look for in senior employees.
Therefore, it’s crucial that you include trustworthiness on your resume.
Emotional intelligence
Finally, the most effective way to lead others is to show emotional intelligence and be able to read and support individuals in your team. This requires you to show empathy, along with other important qualities like flexibility.
While everyone comes to work to do a job, there will always be external influences in both their professional and private life. It’s important that you are flexible and adaptable and support them in any way you can.
It’s also crucial that you understand their point of view and empathize with them, taking their feedback onboard to make positive changes.
It’s time to update your resume
So, there you have it. With only 6 to 8 seconds to grab the recruiter’s attention it’s vital that you include these five important leadership skills if you hope to impress with your resume.
You also want to prove to them that you’ve got what it takes to oversee your colleagues or team effectively and to drive the business forward.
