Advanced Leadership – Skills & Tips to Progress in Leadership

The challenges of leadership and management include working in environments of constant change and the increasing complexity of organisational structures. There is a potent and complex mix of challenges that managers must negotiate to be successful and to drive organisational success including, but not limited to:

• New technologies
• New and flexible ways of working
• A tough economic climate
• Skills and talent shortages
• The knowledge economy
• The rise of social media
• Greater transparency and accountability
• Rising consumer expectations and demands
• Environmental resource concerns

The ways in which an organisation meets these challenges can mean the difference between organisational success and failure, and research has shown that getting the right mix of inspirational leadership and effective management skills and practices can have a significant impact on driving organisational performance and fostering a positive work culture.

In a report published last year (2023), the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) shared data that showed that: 

• 82% of employees become managers without any formal training
• 52% of managers do not hold any management and leadership qualifications
• A third of current managers and leaders have never received any formal management and leadership training (33%), including a quarter (26%) of senior managers and leaders

Ineffective managers have a deep impact on employees including on their motivation, satisfaction and likelihood to leave their job. Workers who rate their manager as ineffective are significantly more likely to be planning to leave their organisation in the next 12 months than those who say their line manager is effective (50% vs 21%). A third (33%) of all managers are likely to leave their job in the next 12 months.

The same dataset revealed that good managers and formally-trained managers are able to support higher levels of innovation and better workplace cultures.

The importance of effective leadership and management is paramount for organisational success. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), productivity and business success are strongly, positively and significantly correlated to management and leadership practices. Leadership skills have a direct impact on effective employee engagement, and there is significant evidence that improving engagement correlates with improving performance and the organisation’s overall success. 

Historically, there have been major weaknesses in the system of management and leadership development in the UK compared to the most successful competitor nations. Education, training and development of UK leaders and managers has been weaker than the USA and mainland European competitors. The CMI research found almost a third of managers (30%) have not done anything to develop their management and leadership skills in the last three years.

To ensure future career success, managers will need to be proactive and adaptable to stay relevant, to thrive in their careers, and to positively lead their people and organisations to success. Advanced leadership development enhances a manager’s skills and qualities that are necessary to adapt to dynamic, evolving challenges in order to become a more effective leader. 

In this article, we will examine key advanced leadership development topics together with strategies and tips to help you to progress in leadership.

Continuous Learning and Development

It is important to state that leaders are not defined by seniority in an organisation. Managers throughout an organisation who display leadership qualities can, and do, have an extraordinary day-to-day impact on an organisation’s success. Leadership is all about setting direction and creating the right organisational conditions for heading in that direction. This is as true for the team leader as it is for the chief executive, although the scope and scale of the task varies significantly.

Leaders who develop advanced leadership skills create the enthusiasm, innovation and engagement that organisations need to succeed. They get the best out of their teams to achieve outstanding results, inspiring trust in their capability to take the organisation in the right direction. 

The ability to continually learn, adapt and innovate is a crucial aspect of leadership; it empowers leaders to take on new challenges and develop strategies to address problems more effectively. The work environment and its challenges are constantly evolving, and an effective leader needs to continually evolve their own knowledge, skills and practices to develop the highest quality leadership skills and capabilities to stay ahead of the curve.

Knowing what areas of leadership learning and development you require, can help you to prioritise leadership-building activities for your ongoing learning and self-improvement to help you become a stronger leader. Start by:

• Reflecting on how you currently perform
• Focus on the coming year, and think through your personal and professional priorities
• What skills, knowledge and competencies do you need to be able to achieve these?
• What skills, knowledge and competencies do you currently have to be able to achieve these?
• What skills, knowledge and competencies do you need to develop to be able to achieve these?

There are a variety of useful tools to help you with this development needs analysis. These might include:

Psychometric questionnaires, tests and games such as, but not limited to, Myers Briggs, SHL, Thomas, can include personality profiles, reasoning tests, motivation questionnaires, and ability assessments. They can generally objectively measure:

• Personality – questions about how you behave, to predict how you might act in a work situation (there are no right or wrong answers)
• Verbal reasoning – your ability to understand written information
• Numerical reasoning – how you think using numbers
• Abstract or spatial reasoning – your ability to understand patterns, logical rules or work with shapes
• Situational judgement tests – set a scene and ask what you would do in that situation

180° and 360° feedback surveys

The 180-degree feedback survey, also known as ‘Manager Feedback’ or ‘Upward Feedback’, is designed to gather input from a leader’s direct reports and immediate superiors who interact closely with the leader. These offer valuable insights into team dynamics, how your actions align with organisational goals and your influence as a leader. They can identify specific areas for improvement and development, and help you to better understand how your leadership style impacts team dynamics. 

The 360-degree feedback survey, or ‘Multi-rater Feedback’, is a comprehensive evaluation tool that gathers feedback from a broader group of stakeholders. This includes direct reports, peers, superiors, customers and other relevant parties who interact with the leader regularly. The aim is to provide a holistic view of the leader’s performance review from multiple perspectives. 

180° and 360° feedback surveys encourage self-reflection, helping leaders recognise their strengths, blind spots, and areas for development, and enable them to understand how their actions impact others.

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) is an assessment tool that is used in business, for example in strategic decision-making. However, you can utilise it to assess your own leadership skills and abilities. You can also take information gained from 180° and 360° feedback surveys, if you have completed these, to inform this analysis. Ask yourself the following example questions to guide you in assessing what your true strengths and weaknesses are. This is not an exhaustive list:

• What activities and tasks do you think you perform strongly in? What have others highlighted?
• What do you bring to your role that is unique to you? What have others highlighted?
• What do your colleagues depend on you for? What have others highlighted?
• What activities and tasks do you enjoy most?
• Are there any activities and tasks you find yourself avoiding? What have others highlighted?
• Do you find yourself getting so caught up on small details that the big things do not get done?
• Do people need to clarify or need you to expand on your communications with them?
• What leadership skills, knowledge and abilities do you think you need to improve upon? What have others highlighted?

The aim of this analysis is to honestly identify your strengths in order to focus on these and build upon them, and to recognise areas of weaknesses in order to plan activities to develop them into strengths.

The next stage of the SWOT is to identify opportunities for learning and development. These might be, for example:

• On-the-job learning such as taking the lead on a project, work-shadowing or deputising for your line manager, being mentored by a more senior leader either internally in your own organisation or externally through mentoring programmes, or networking to find a suitable mentor.
• Taking a recognised management/leadership qualification and/or building upon your current management/leadership qualification(s). Management and leadership qualifications can be studied in a variety of formats, and begin at Level 2 – team leadership – and progress through first line, junior and middle management and leadership to Levels 7 and 8 – senior management, director and chief executive.
• Studying for an advanced degree such as a Masters in Strategic Management and Leadership or a Masters in Business Administration (MBA).
• Becoming a member of a professional institute such as, but not limited to: Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Institute of Leadership (IoL), Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), and the Institute of Directors (IoD). Membership of professional institutes provides a variety of opportunities to share knowledge and develop professionally.
• Attending short courses, workshops and webinars – these are delivered in a variety of ways, such as face to face, online, and e-learning, and cover a wide range of leadership topics. Some may be available within your own organisation as part of talent development, whilst others will be external from various providers.
• Other leadership continual professional development activities might include reading journals or articles, attending conferences, professional networking, and self-directed learning sets.

The final stage of the SWOT is to identify threats that might prevent you from participating in learning and development, and to plan strategies to overcome them. These might be for example:

• Lack of time – this is only a threat when you do not prioritise your own development.
• Limited resources including finances – continual professional development doesn’t always have to be costly; be creative if resources are limited, for example set up a learning set and invite others to join you.
• Lack of support – if you lack support from your line manager and/or your organisation, empower yourself to take action to develop your career, proactively seek out development opportunities, garner support by growing your professional network and/or by finding a mentor, and build relationships with those who can give you good advice.

A growth mindset is the belief that your abilities and skills can be developed through dedication and hard work. Leaders with a growth mindset are more likely to take on new challenges, embrace failure as a learning opportunity, and persist in the face of obstacles. Let’s now look at some of the critical leadership skills that you may wish to consider developing further.

Strategic Thinking and Decision-Making

Strategic thinking in leadership is the ability to see the bigger picture and anticipate future trends, challenges and opportunities for your organisation. Leaders with strong strategic thinking skills are better equipped to identify opportunities for growth, mitigate risks, and make well-informed decisions that drive the organisation’s success. 

A crucial part of the strategic planning process, strategic decisions are used to establish organisational goals and the allocation of sufficient resources needed to achieve them. The main objective of strategic decision-making is to align both long-term and short-term goals with the mission and vision of an organisation.

Leaders must make tough decisions every day, often with limited information and under pressure. Broadening your perspective with input and guidance from team members and colleagues enables an informed strategic decision shaped by views from people with relevant expertise. This doesn’t mean you should seek out every opinion and give it the same validity, but gaining a broad range of inputs will enable you to have a more rounded understanding of the problem and devise a more effective and workable solution.

A robust decision-making framework helps to define the issue and consider alternatives, and guide you through the complexities of the process, helping to avoid hasty decisions. The decision-making and strategy framework you choose will depend upon your particular situation and requirements, whether you want to focus on inclusivity and consensus-building, or efficiency and speed. Popular decision-making and strategy frameworks include:

SWOT analysis – we have discussed this earlier and how it can be utilised for self-assessment; however, it can also be used as part of a strategic or planning process, and also be applied to help understand an organisation or a situation in different scenarios. The ‘SWOT’ is a data capture exercise to be followed by analysis. It encourages strategic thinking and can enable organisations to assess its strengths and weaknesses, to spot business opportunities, as well as threats. Its value lies in its ability to provide self-assessment rapidly and its flexibility.

PESTLE analysis – this is a broad fact-finding management framework and diagnostic tool designed to help understand external factors (political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and environmental) which impact business strategy and influence decisions. A PESTLE analysis helps to detect and understand broad, long-term trends and supports a range of business planning including strategic business planning.

Cost-benefit analysis – this is the process of comparing projected or estimated costs against the projected benefits or opportunities associated with a project or course of action to determine whether it stacks up from a business perspective.

Scenario planning – this helps decision-makers identify ranges of potential outcomes and impacts, evaluate responses and manage for both positive and negative possibilities. By visualising potential risks and opportunities, organisations can become proactive rather than simply reacting to events. A good set of scenarios will contain two to five different narratives. More than five scenarios tend to get confused with one another. Each scenario should contain enough detail to assess the likelihood of success or failure of different strategic options. There are a number of steps to scenario planning, and these are:

• Brainstorm Future Scenarios. In the very first step you need to decide a time frame
• Identify Trends and Driving Forces
• Create A Scenario Planning Template
• Develop a Scenario
• Evaluate a Scenario
• Update Strategies and Policies Accordingly

Strategic risk assessment – this is the process of identifying and managing the specific risks that affect an organisation’s ability to achieve key objectives. Strategic risks can harm or weaken the organisation’s goals and objectives, potentially affecting the viability of the entire organisation. Since strategic risk assessment plays a critical role in the effectiveness of achieving strategic objectives, it is imperative for leaders to establish and maintain proper risk assessment procedures. Steps to strategic risk assessment are:

• Define the strategies of your organisation
• Collect data and input regarding strategic risk
• Analyse and prioritise risks
• Develop and adopt a strategic risk plan
• Communicate and execute the strategic risk plan
• Monitor and review the strategic risk plan

Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Empathy

Effective leadership has more to do with the human side of a manager and their interpersonal ‘soft’ or emotional intelligence skills. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as recognise and influence the emotions of those around you. Leaders who have or develop high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, resolve conflict effectively, manage change with empathy, and respond to colleagues and others with empathy and understanding.

Emotional intelligence is typically broken down into four core competencies:

• Self-awareness – this is at the core of everything. It describes your ability to not only understand your strengths and weaknesses, but to also recognise your emotions and their effect on you and your team’s performance.
• Self-management – this refers to the ability to manage your emotions, particularly in stressful situations, and maintain a positive outlook despite setbacks. Leaders who lack self-management tend to react and have a harder time keeping their impulses in check.
• Social awareness – this describes your ability to recognise others’ emotions and the dynamics in play within your organisation. Socially aware leaders display empathy, and they endeavour to understand their colleagues’ feelings and perspectives, which enables them to communicate and collaborate more effectively with them. By communicating with empathy, you can better support your team, whilst improving your individual performance.
• Relationship management – this refers to your ability to influence, coach and mentor others, and resolve conflict effectively. For an effective leader, it is important to properly address issues as they arise; you need to be able to have those tough conversations as unaddressed conflict and unproductive activities put a strain on resources and morale.

Leaders can strengthen their emotional intelligence by first developing their self-awareness. The 180° and 360° feedback surveys and SWOT analysis discussed earlier, are both useful tools to help you do this. Actively seeking feedback from your manager, colleagues and peers, whilst also undertaking an individual self-assessment and comparing the results, will highlight any blind spots or leadership gaps that you can prioritise for development.

Start to pay attention to your emotions, reflect on why you are feeling that way, and what prompted the strong emotional response both positive and negative. How do your emotions influence your decision-making, interactions and meetings? This will help you become more aware of your emotions and better understand your colleagues’ feelings and perspectives.

Practise active listening. This involves really focusing on what the speaker is saying, showing that you are engaged by paraphrasing and using non-verbal cues such as nodding. Let them talk without interruption, preconceptions, and scepticism; put your own issues on pause to allow yourself to absorb their situation and to consider how they are feeling before you react and respond.

You can increase your knowledge and understanding of emotional intelligence and its impact on your role as a leader by taking a course or by reading one of the many books on the topic by Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence.

Building and Leading High-Performance Teams

Leadership is about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it. Effective leaders connect with their teams while ensuring that tasks are completed effectively. At the outset, goals should be clearly set and defined, and the team needs to buy into the goals, so plan them together. Everyone involved needs to be aligned on what success looks like to be able to work cohesively. Team cohesiveness refers to a team’s ability to effectively work as a whole towards a common goal.

Leaders have a profound impact on employees, influencing everything from how engaged they are with their work to how they perform and develop. As a leader, your role is to empower your team, motivate them, and ultimately guide them to achieve their full potential. A great leader brings out the best in their people and gives them what they need to be successful. 

As a leader, you need to show your team that you trust them in order for them to go above and beyond. Give them a clear outline of what you would like them to achieve and then empower them to approach the task in their own way. Provide them with quality time for catch-ups, asking insightful questions and giving constructive feedback, as this is one of the most important factors in creating an empowered, engaged, high-performing team.

Effective leaders create a learning culture within their team, as this equips team members with a growth mindset, an appetite for operating outside their comfort zones, and embracing change as an opportunity for growth. As a consequence, the team becomes more engaged, motivated and productive and less likely to leave.

Adaptability and Change Management

In the workplace, rapid change has become the norm, with new technologies continually being introduced. Managing change is about supporting individuals, teams and organisations to understand and adapt to the constant changes happening around them; whereas leading change describes influencing and focusing on the change, driving forces, visions and processes that fuel transformation. 

Leaders who are leading and managing the change process need to have a clear plan in place that covers, at a minimum, when, how and why the change is taking place. They should be as transparent as possible with employees, even if they are unable to give them all of the details, and being overly optimistic and promising unrealistic outcomes will just make employees suspicious and distrustful of a leader’s motives.

Keep the lines of communication open, taking the time to explain why the change is happening, and what it will look like in practice, be open to questions and talk through concerns or thoughts in a neutral atmosphere. 

During change, an effective leader inspires their team and demonstrates strategic thinking, they are open-minded and flexible and show their team that they can depend on them to have their best interests at heart.

Ethical Leadership and Integrity

People want to trust in their leaders and when they do, the leader becomes part of the reason others want to succeed. Ethical leaders inspire their team and create a culture of respect and a feeling of psychological safety. It is a vital skill that leaders should develop if they want their teams to feel respected, empowered and supported at work.

Through their words and actions, ethical leadership is about demonstrating strong moral principles that will point out wrongdoings, even when it may not benefit their organisation, and showing what is right is at the core of being an ethical leader.

Fairness is a core ethical leadership attribute. Fairness is about how people interact with each other and expect to be treated. We expect to be treated fairly and in return we treat others fairly. Leaders should prioritise treating everyone with equity, and place justice and fairness at the centre of their decision-making more broadly. 

Integrity is another important aspect of ethical leadership. Integrity refers to the quality of having a strong moral purpose and being honest. Leaders with integrity do what is morally and ethically right and avoid questionable practices. For example, when making decisions, they consider potential consequences on the organisation and other people.

Some examples of where leaders could face dilemmas where they should display ethical leadership might be:

• Down-sizing or restructuring the organisation – defining fair criteria for redundancies.
• Balancing the need for cost-effective resources with ethical procurement and potential higher costs.
• Negotiating pay increases, balancing costs to the organisation with the needs of workers.
• Deciding to take disciplinary action against an employee even though the outcome might mean dismissal.

A prime example of where corporate leaders faced ethical dilemmas and did not display the attributes of ethical leadership and integrity is the unfolding drama of the Post Office scandal, where executives placed maintaining the reputation of the organisation above truth and justice. 

However, there was one person who emerged from this debacle as an ethical leader who put fairness and integrity ahead of personal gain, and who built trust and credibility not only with former colleagues, but also with the general public, politicians and the legal profession, and that was Alan Bates. A former sub-postmaster, he spearheaded the recently concluded group litigation against the Post Office; his ethical leadership of the campaign for justice garnered trust and support from other wronged Post Office sub-postmasters and led to the vindication of all those wrongly convicted.

Communication and Influence

To inspire, a leader has to be able to communicate effectively, listen actively and express ideas persuasively. Communication matters – nearly every human activity involves conversation, whether spoken or written and the stakes of each of those conversations whether that is making an impression, making a connection or making a decision, are high. Whether you want to tell a compelling story, listen more attentively, network more strategically, or think more responsibly, as a leader it is important to communicate effectively so that other people understand what you are trying to achieve. Leaders need to be able to handle large volumes of information; they must reflect, absorb and convey their message with clarity to a multitude of audiences.

There will be times when there may be barriers to communication both for yourself and for others and it will be part of your role to find ways to overcome these, supporting others to do the same. There will also be times when you will find yourself dealing with conflict; clear and empathetic communication between people is key to reducing conflict. It will be part of your role to overcome conflict, communicating clearly with others with the aim of finding a solution, whilst also building trust and mutual respect.

Effective leaders know when they need to talk, but more importantly, they know when they need to listen. When you listen well, you gain a clear understanding of others’ perspectives and knowledge. Leadership includes asking insightful questions, and really listening to everyone with the belief that you will hear something that will educate you. You must be curious in seeking information, and then have the talent to act on it quickly. A great leader recognises subject matter expertise, uses it, and gives credit where credit is due.

Effective communication is a skill that can be successfully developed through coaching and mentoring. Coaches can give you constructive feedback and suggestions on your communication style and content through practice sessions and reflection. Mentors can share their own experiences and insights on effective communication.

Mentorship and Coaching

Earlier we briefly discussed mentors as a valuable continual professional development resource. A mentor is someone who guides and supports you by sharing their expertise with you. Having an experienced mentor can be invaluable in helping you navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with leadership.

You should first be very clear about what you would like to get out of a mentoring relationship. Define some very clear goals and objectives before you go searching for your mentor so that you can discuss your aim for the relationship when you approach them.

Choosing a mentor is really a matter of finding someone that you respect, and would love to learn from. Your potential mentor may be someone from inside your organisation or an external contact, perhaps a former manager, or someone you admire on LinkedIn for example. You need to be mindful that not everyone will have the time availability to commit to mentoring, so don’t take it personally if they refuse. If the mentor agrees to mentor you, you will need to cultivate the relationship as it is a two-way street, and you will need to be receptive to feedback, being sure to act upon it.

Having a mentor can help with networking opportunities, work on your personal and professional development, offer unique new perspectives and potentially help guide your career. A mentor shares their knowledge, experience and skill with their mentee, and gives you direction.

Coaching is a valuable development activity that can enhance your skills, knowledge and performance around specific skills and goals. Whereas a mentor directs you in your development, a coach will give you the space to talk and reflect, with the goal of reaching your own conclusions, enabling you to find your own direction.

Coaching is an excellent way to develop leadership capability within the workplace. It provides a unique opportunity for leaders to develop themselves, where the coach acts as a powerful sounding board, enabling the leader to hone their leadership skills in a safe environment. The coach provides feedback allowing the leader to reflect on their behaviour and how it impacts others.

Balancing Leadership and Management

There is an ongoing debate about the nature of management and leadership, and the difference between them. A common approach to the difference is that management is about the day-to-day running of a function, with a focus on task achievement, project implementation and processes for getting the job done. Leadership is about creating a sense of vision, common purpose and strategic direction, with a focus on inspiring people and gaining their commitment to the long-term effectiveness and success of the organisation.

While these roles may seem separate, successful leaders often find themselves walking a tightrope of leading whilst doing. Leaders cannot afford to ignore the managerial aspects of their roles; similarly, managers must incorporate leadership qualities into their roles. Leaders bring a forward-thinking perspective, whilst managers ensure that changes are implemented smoothly. To balance these requires adaptability to change focus in order to suit different conditions. Adaptable people are often critical thinkers because they can assess the situation, consider all outcomes, and determine the best course of action. Examples of critical thinking skills include:

• Analysis
• Observation
• Problem-solving
• Logical thinking

People who are adept at balancing strategic leadership with day-to-day management lead by example. They practise that often over-used idiom, they don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Both leadership and management require ongoing learning and development, as does the art of balancing leadership and management which can also be learned and perfected, so participating in continual learning and development will improve your skills in both areas. 

Conclusion

In this article we have explored strategies to help you to identify your current leadership knowledge, skills and abilities, and to highlight the areas that you may want to develop further. These have included the critical leadership competencies of:

• Strategic Thinking and Decision-Making
• Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Empathy
• Building and Leading High-Performance Teams
• Adaptability and Change Management
• Ethical Leadership and Integrity
• Communication and Influence

We also discussed the differences between management and leadership, and highlighted the balancing act that many have to perform in successfully fulfilling these interchangeable roles. 

The mindset of a highly effective leader is to be constantly improving. Leaders set the tone of their organisations and when the leaders are seen to be developing their knowledge, skills and abilities, they inspire their teams to develop this mindset too, and to emulate the behaviour of continuous learning and improvement. The results are motivated, engaged and high-performing teams. This can have more far-reaching consequences, resulting in overall organisational success.

This is one of the many reasons why the conscious and proactive commitment to enhancing personal and professional skills and increasing learning throughout your career as a leader is critical. As we have seen, there are many approaches that you can take to engage in continuous professional development (CPD), find your own preferred learning and development style and make CPD a positive habit.