The 5 Skills to Reinvent your Leadership:

We are living in an era where we keep experiencing a shift of paradigms in a variety of ways and fields. Leadership is one of them as it is continuously re-inventing itself to be able to fit in a world that is evolving very fast.

Today, even neuroscience, positive psychology, mindfulness, and other disciplines put their footprints on this subject, creating a new positive model of leadership based on optimism, vulnerability, kindness, trust, and empathy which all aim to raise awareness, improve the stress level, and combine between well-being and improved performance.

Let's first be clear on what is leadership. A leader is neither about a title nor about power. It emerges from any educational level and involves everyone: the father, the manager, the professor, the doctor or the CEO, etc. You don't become a leader because you have a high status, or the power to control the lives of other people and decide what they should do or how they should do it.

You become a leader when people trust you for who you are and for what you are doing for them.

The 5 Skills to reinvent your leadership:

These skills will help you not only reinvest your leadership but create also a joyful environment, improve your mental health and performance. Research proved that when people are happy at the work place, they Perform at their best which can impact many other aspects

1. Self-awareness: When you are self-aware, you develop more confidence and you perform at your best. The more self-aware you are, the better you get to understand others. With self-awareness, you

•  You will have clarity of who you are and what you stand for.
• You will become more aware of your thoughts and your emotions.
• You will make better decisions in line with your own values.
• You will have better control over your stress and anxiety.
•  Your will improve your performance and build rapport and great relations.

2. Clear communication: it is not about clarity of words or a great speech. Clear communication is way more than that; it is about trust and credibility. People who trust you will listen to you even when your communication is not clear. However, people will not trust you, despite the clarity of the message, and there are great chances of misinterpretations and doubt.

To improve your communication try to improve your level of trust both at the personal or professional level through integrity, mastery of your field, and empathy.

Trust is the essence of a successful relation or collaboration. It is the basic element we need to rely on before jumping into strategies and communication plans. It is hard to build and very easy to lose. Rebuilding trust may take time or it may remain a myth as we will never be able to control other intentions and interpretations despite a great personal goodwill. But it always deserves a new try!

3. Cultural awareness: Globalization, digitalization, and now the pandemic  turned the world into a small concentrated community where we have to collaborate, and communicate on a daily basis with different people from different cultures. An effective Leadership, in this regard, is about incorporating these differences as part of the management, understanding them, and adopting the right attitudes to overcome cultural biases and misperceptions.

When working in a highly diverse environment, then intercultural consideration becomes fundamental without which our competencies and skills may go non sense.

Cultural intelligence will rely on your ability to dig into a contextual understanding of the differences of cultures, and your capacity to adapt your plans and communication accordingly.

Observe the environment you are in. Be aware of people’s cultures, habits, values, and norms before engaging in a meeting, a trip or a business agreement. Develop your emotional intelligence, and empathy. Be intuitive to decode signals, and create great interactions based on trust through accepting other differences.

4. Empathy: can be beneficial to both parties. When you act with empathy and kindness, you create a positive environment and you contribute to the well-being of everyone around you. Your brain triggers dopamine and oxytocin, two essential hormones to create trust and well-being. Integrating well-being into a company's DNA ha become a must and a priority.

5. Resilience: great leaders know how to turn tough situations into seeds of growth and great opportunities. With all the challenges going on, everyone is concerned and need to develop resilience at the personal, professional and organizational level if not even at the societal level.

Embracing a holistic approach has become fundamental as everything in our lives is interrelated and adopting a positive attitude has become one of the top soft skills needed to thrive in an era full of challenges and controversies.

It is never late to develop new skills and learn to become a great leader. The fastest way to achieve this goal is to become more human and start looking at people with compassion focusing on solutions and inclusion.

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