10 Leadership Skills: Definition & Examples for Your Resume

Leadership skills can assist you in different stages of your professional life. They are fundamental for any manager, supervisory, or executive position. Leadership skills incorporate a set of personal traits and techniques and take time to practice and learn. Listing leadership skills in a resume right helps a candidate stand out.

In this article, we’ll explain what leadership skills are and how to include leadership skills in a resume with examples:

Leadership skills are key executive attributes. They allow managers to plan for the organization, make decisions, guide teams, and realize company goals. During the process, leaders use their skills to communicate, persuade, manage time schedules, and supervise the overall progression. 

Leadership skills are vital in a workplace where cross-team members function together and cooperate. It can also be helpful when you are preparing an entry-level job resume. 

When a team, project, department, or company has difficulties sorting out solutions and deciding on the direction, managers are there to organize and make arrangements.

Here are 50 different resume examples of leadership skills, based on skill types:

1. Management

Managing, in the broad sense of managing a business, making policies, self-management, and developing strategies for the company are necessary leadership skills.

2. Delegating and Team-building

Smart delegating includes knowing your employees, ensuring each task is delivered to a suitable person, and assigning reasonable workloads for your team.

3. Empathy and Compassion

Empathy may sound obscure, but developing rapport with its employees is an essential leadership skill. It allows leaders to recognize underlying reasons for poor performance or foster a friendly environment for the company.

4. Nurtures Growth

A good leader motivates the company and enables the employees to gain professional growth throughout the process. To do so, a leader must allow both independence and timely advice.

5. Open to Feedback

To avoid hubris or being too arbitrary, a leader should learn to accept critical advice from the team and be reasonable in differentiating good suggestions.

6. Convey Clear Expectations and Simplify Complex Messages

Leadership skills include explaining intricate concepts, indicating explicit directions, and performing unequivocal presentations.

7. Problem-Solving

A leader needs to discover a solution when a company is met with obstacles or problems. Whether by outsourcing or inner analysis, the leader needs to locate the reason, remove the problem, and prevent it from happening again; these leadership skills will help the company weather the storm.

8. Trustworthiness

A dependable leader means that you are reliable. Often, this means that you are trustworthy as an individual and possess leadership skills that send positive values and attributes to the company. These serve as valuable examples for the employees.

9. Creativity and Efficient Learning

Leaders who can think outside the box lead their companies to outstrip their competitors. The skills to embrace the ever-changing technology will also prevent the company from being eliminated.

10. Flexible to Changes

Things never turn out the way you planned them. As a result, leaving flexible space for accidents and ensuring risks are affordable are also imperative leadership skills.

Leadership skills can be useful, not only in leadership roles. The ability to self-manage, teamwork, communication, and think critically are advantageous for your resume. 

For job seekers, it’s essential to learn how to describe and demonstrate leadership skills on a resume correctly.

First and foremost, read the job ad and requirements closely to mark the leadership skill keywords. 

Next, blend the leadership skills keywords in these 3 resume sections.

Listing leadership skills in resume experience descriptions:

Thinking of leadership skills to list in the resume experience can be an ordeal. How to make it easier? Before you start writing, select the keywords from the job posting. Next, use examples to substantiate your leadership competence, and blend the skills in your resume description.

Listing leadership skills in resume summary/objective:

Another section to blend leadership skills seamlessly is the summary section. This section allows you to describe your leadership skills in short narratives.

Listing leadership skills in the skills section: 

The resume skills section is a great place to categorize and organize your leadership skills. Similarly, for applicants targeting a specific company, tailor your skills sections and blend the leadership skills keywords in your resume.

Listing leadership skills in the cover letter: 

 Articulate one or two leadership experiences on your resume.

Instead of brainstorming a list of leadership experiences, focus on one big task that you have managed with a team to discuss in an interview. 

Explain the difficulties that you’ve met and the approach you’ve taken to solve the problem.

Think of how you communicate with your team members and how they would describe your ability to delegate and organize the project. These will bring valuable insight to the hiring manager in your interview.

Stay confident.

During an interview, you should be well prepared. Stay confident about your answers even if unexpected questions come up. Think carefully about what kind of manager the company expects. For example, if the company needs an open and democratic leader, demonstrate experience and leadership skills of how open to opinions and accept critical advice from your employees.

Practice the questions and improvise.

To demonstrate leadership skills in an interview, prepare yourself for uncertainties. That includes practicing, anticipating, and flexibility for improvising when the hiring manager asks unexpected questions.

Leadership skills, as mentioned, are a set of skills toolboxes. Different combinations lead to different types of leadership styles. Depending on industry, company culture, or structure, different styles are helpful and can be shifted from one to another.

1. Coaching

A leader with a coaching leadership style is always open to suggestions and encourages their team players to be active. A coaching type of leadership style sees people’s potential and by giving little instructions they are able to realize the makings. 

2. Democratic

Democratic leaders are receptive and communicative. These leaders value opinions and foster trust as well as creativity. This type of leadership style also delegates without being dictatorial or “bossy”.

3. Pace-setter

Pace-setter refers to driven leaders that care for productivity and speed. This type of leader is an agile practitioner and is energetic to achieve goals. Although pace-setters may be effective for development, especially during the entrepreneur stage, employees might stress out from the pressure.

4. Authoritative

The authoritative type of leadership style describes confident leaders who map out the direction and strategy for the employees to follow. They are willing to explain their plan and encourage the employees to follow through.

5. Affiliative

Affiliative leadership styles value bonds and relationships. This type of leadership style is empathetic and understanding and often encourages harmony among the company. It is particularly useful for conflict resolution.

Leadership skills are not solely meant for leaders. Anyone can benefit from taking responsibility and progress into an accountable manager. To learn and improve your leadership skills, here’s how to develop your leadership skills:

💡 Be initiative.

Focus on the leadership skills you’d like to practice. Stepping out of the comfort zone is the primal way to progress. Being initiative and getting in touch with new tasks is the best way to acquire hands-on experience. 

💡 Take on more responsibility.

Don’t be complacent with current responsibilities. Taking on more responsibility trains your leadership skills and decision-making strategy. Finding efficient solutions to improve productivity can train your allocating and delegating skills.

💡 Consume resources about leadership.

There are tons of resources for you to discover. The basics are reading books, consulting your superior, and consuming authoritative reports and reviews. Familiarize yourself with the mindset so the vast leadership skills to learn will not be too intimidating.

💡 Join leadership training courses or workshops.

Online resources such as Coursera, Dale Carnegie, Harvard Business School, Open University, Skillshare, or even 10 min Ted Talks offer bountiful explanations on how to develop leadership skills. In addition, university certificate programs, events, or local training workshops are all ideal choices for you to improve your leadership skills.

💡 Practice communication and deal with conflicts.

Communication requires consistent practicing. Without communication, a leader cannot cooperate and deliver instructions to others. Public speaking, presentation, concept explanation, and constructive opinion delivering are all the fundamentals of management and leadership skills.

--- Originally written by Wu Chao Min ---