Whether you’re a founder, manager, team leader, or entrepreneur of any sort, there are some key skills and qualities that are invaluable to your success in a world emerging from coronavirus.
Anyone in a position of influence should have basic leadership skills and qualities. Still, there are a few skills that you can finesse to best help your team navigate the challenges presented by today’s economic climate. And while everyone seems to have an opinion on the various leadership styles, we think the skills and how a leader uses them is much more important, allowing you to change your leadership style depending on your audience.
So, whichever leadership style you choose to use, be sure to have a fundamental understanding of the following skills and qualities moving forward:
- Able to take criticism
- Remain passionate about your cause
- Able to form connections and relationships
- Relentlessly positive perseverance
- Able to pivot at the drop of a hat
- Experience managing a remote team
And don’t worry, we’ll expand upon these points with some examples and how you can make these skills and qualities work in any leadership style.
Able to take criticism
This goes both for being able to take criticism from important people in your life like investors, mentors, and those close to your organization, and for knowing when to shrug off the “criticism” from “haters,” internet trolls, and/or those you are not aligned with your mission and vision. There will be plenty of criticism from people who do not understand your business or its purpose, but knowing when to take criticism (and take it seriously) from your respected peers and advisors, is a different thing entirely.
This can be a tough skill to refine, but realizing you aren’t always right and putting your business’s needs ahead of your ego can truly expand your business globally, and you will be respected for it. Keeping a record of useful feedback from clients/customers, those directly involved with your business, and remember that everyone deals with criticism. But some choose to use it productively, and some choose to ignore it or meet it with a headstrong opinion.
Remain passionate about your cause
Don’t let one bad day be the maker or breaker of your business. There’s a fire alive deep within many of the world’s strongest and most effective leaders. And in the face of coronavirus, those who do not give up on their mission are the ones who will prevail.
Being an entrepreneur or even a team leader within a larger organization can sometimes beat you down. There are days, weeks even, where things seem harder than they really are. Or maybe things are as bad as they seem, but we know one thing for sure, it’s that leaders don’t give up.
Able to form connections and build relationships
Part of being a leader is being relatable and building rapport with your team. Your business or your team will not be successful if you cannot communicate your mission and help others understand why it is relevant to their lives.
Communication is one of the building blocks of success and arguably, one of the more important skills to have as a leader. Leaders can form meaningful relationships (or teach others how to form meaningful relationships) with their clients/customers/team and peers.
Relentlessly positive perseverance
This point goes along with your passion. By remaining positive and persevering through adversity (including events like Covid), your team and your company will be seen in the light that you shine through your passion.
Persevering through adversity (when it makes sense to do so) is a quality that not all people possess.
Able to pivot at the drop of a hat
Collectively, the human race has seen more pivots this past year than ever before. One reason is that there are more businesses and workers globally than ever before, but mostly due to the events associated with the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Taking a completely offline brick-and-mortar business online by building a store or offering a completely different suite of services to help the new horde of remote workers are examples of pivots that were 100% necessary (but definitely difficult to pull off).
Many businesses did not have a plan in place for a global pandemic, and even those with emergency contingency plans were hit hard. Changing your plan or having a backup to implement on short notice is 100% necessary moving forward.
Experience managing a remote team
Along with the ability to pivot at the drop of a hat, experience managing a remote team will be almost sure to be required of leaders moving forward. Global companies already have this type of experience at the ready. Still, companies that were previously headquartered in one location will need to understand how to work with a distributed team.
The freelance/remote work movement is booming, and your company can embrace it or fight it. There really isn’t any in-between, and leaders are embracing it!
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So, there you have it. Our top 6 skills and qualities are required for leaders pushing through the Covid pandemic. No matter what leadership style(s) you use, these skills are necessary for success in a post-covid world.
