Build Your Capacity for Leadership in 3 Steps

What is capacity building in Leadership and why is it important? Leadership is not only a title. It is a mindset and skillset that capacity-building activities can foster and support. Whether you are aspiring to step into a leadership role or looking to enhance your leadership skills, investing in your capacity is a crucial step toward success. 

Leadership is about guiding, providing a vision, influencing, inspiring, and making decisions. It requires many skills that need to be acquired, and that can only be done via capacity-building workshops and programs. If you are wondering what capacity building is, check out my previous blog: What is Capacity Building and Its Benefits

But how do you develop these qualities and strengths?

Build Your Capacity for Leadership in 3 Steps

3 crucial steps for building your capacity as a leader

Leadership does not mean having all the answers; on the contrary, it means learning from each other, and you, being the leader, have the responsibility to give support, build trust, and be an accountable buddy in case of challenges and turmoil. Start applying these three steps, and your leadership style will improve.

1. Emotional Intelligence and self-awareness

The first step to being a great leader is to know yourself and possess emotional intelligence. Self-awareness allows the leader to understand what they are good at, their strengths, where they have a gap, their weaknesses, what is important to them, their values, their why, and their purpose. Emotional intelligence means having good communication skills, being able to create relationships and trust, guiding humans toward a common goal, and navigating challenges effectively.

How can we build the capacity for self-awareness?

  1. Do your own SWOT analysis and create your personal map, as seen below in the image. Find out what anchors you have, how you see yourself with your strengths, and what is important for you in life. This exercise allows you to create the foundation for your growth, as knowing yourself is essential.
  2. Seek feed forward—ask for suggestions on where you can do better, whether it is during a presentation, speech, or team meeting. Remember to ask what you have done well. Constructive feed forward will help you build your leadership capacity.
  3. Practice mindfulness. Being present and focusing on the here and now will impact your decision-making and relationships with your employees, peers, and stakeholders, not to mention with your beloved ones. 
personal map

How can we build capacity for increasing emotional intelligence?

  • Show empathy – try to put yourself in the shoes of others, listen on the 360-degree level, and ask genuine questions. 
  • Regulate your emotions – understand your triggers, take a deep breath, choose how to respond, and keep calm.
  • Impactful communication – embrace different perspectives and opinions and demonstrate a clear, simple, and assertive communication style. 

2. Cultivate strategic thinking and decision-making

Leaders need the capacity to make informed decisions that impact the team, the organizations, and the success. The capacity to demonstrate strategic thinking is vital for anticipating risks, challenges, and opportunities.

How can we develop the capacity for strategic thinking?

  • Be a Lifelong student – keep learning, be open-minded, read books, attend events and conferences. 
  • Follow trends  – pay attention to news and economic and technological trends to make proactive decisions.
  • Critical thinking – Challenge assumptions and decisions and always ask open questions. The famous one I like is “What if.” 

How can you make better decisions?

  • Fact Finding: Gather information from different sources and ensure that you have all the information you need to make good decisions. That includes listening to all stakeholders and undertaking your due diligence
  • Risk Assessment: Check out the positive and negative sides of the situation. You can use the traffic light process that I always follow. For more information, reach out. 
  • Trust your gut feeling or judgment: Believe and confidently make decisions. Sometimes, despite all the evidence, your gut feeling might be telling you something else, and if it does not feel right, it might be violating your values.  
Build Your Capacity for Leadership

3. Foster a growth mindset and be flexible

Leadership is not a straight road; it has twists and turns, and you need to adopt an open mindset and be eager to learn. A growth mindset, as psychologist Carol Dweck quotes, is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort and learning.

How do we foster the capacity of a growth mindset?

  • Embracing Challenges: Obstacles and failures will happen. Change the perspective of seeing them as opportunities to learn and improve.
  • Try fast, fail fast, and learn fast—that is my motto. Setbacks will occur, and some of your actions and decisions will fail. That’s okay. Reflect, rinse, and pivot. 
  • Adopt the capability of receiving positive feed forward. Any comments are welcome. This data is for you to improve your leadership style and how you guide your employees.
leadership

Final Thoughts

Building your capacity as a leader is a non-stop journey. Learning and adapting requires focus, passion, determination, and self-awareness. Guiding employees requires emotional intelligence capabilities, the skill of listening, and being open to innovation. As an effective leader, you must be inspiring, give a vision, and infuse motivation to engage your tribe.

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Do you need help with building your capacity?

With InnKick, professionals can find a clear path to follow their vocation, craft their authentic personal and company brand, with tangible results.

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