3 Skills Every New Leader Needs (2024)

Summary.

As a new manager looking to grow your skills, you might be tempted to focus on becoming more authoritative or quickly driving results — traits typically associated with and driven by the behaviors of powerful men. But now, leaders are being called to develop skills like adaptability, emotional intelligence, and humility, traits that are particularly valuable to navigating uncertain times and that are more often found in female leaders.

• Adaptability: This is about identifying signals of change, gathering enough data to be able to see when circ*mstances demand a new and different plan, and being willing to shift direction mid-process. In studies, women leaders are found to rank higher than their male leaders in terms of being adaptable. And women entrepreneurs have a track record of being able to do more with less.
• Contextual Problem-Solving: Women are sometimes criticized for focusing on too many extra details, but their ability to zoom out and integrate wide-ranging data is valuable and impactful in the long term. It is never a waste of time to go down a rabbit hole — especially if that exploration might give you a better look at the landscape when you reemerge.
• Empathy: This skill, which women are more inclined to master, can be a business superpower, especially in uncertain times. It doesn’t make managers overly sympathetic or soft; it allows them to step inside other people’s shoes and better understand them, their needs, and what it will take for them to succeed.