presentation of leadership skills

How to be a great leader

What makes a great leader? These TED Talks offer surprising, nuanced approaches on how to inspire and empower others to do their very best.

Simon Sinek

How great leaders inspire action

Fields Wicker-Miurin

Learning from leadership's missing manual

Itay Talgam

Lead like the great conductors

Drew Dudley

Everyday leadership

Roselinde Torres

What it takes to be a great leader

Tim Harford

Trial, error and the God complex

David Logan

Tribal leadership

Stanley McChrystal

Listen, learn ... then lead

Jacqueline Novogratz

Inspiring a life of immersion

Derek Sivers

How to start a movement

Sheryl Sandberg

Why we have too few women leaders

What is leadership?

All leaders, to a certain degree, do the same thing. Whether you’re talking about an executive, sports coach, or schoolteacher, leadership is enabling others to accomplish something they couldn’t do on their own. Some people in formal leadership positions are poor leaders , and many good leaders have no formal authority. In this sense, leadership is something you do and not something you are. It is a person’s actions, rather than their words or job title, that inspire trust and commitment.

Get to know and directly engage with senior McKinsey experts on leadership

Aaron De Smet is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office;  Carolyn Dewar is a senior partner in the Bay Area office; Dana Maor is a senior partner in the Tel Aviv office; Kurt Strovink , Ramesh Srinivasan , and Vik Malhotra are senior partners in the New York office; and Scott Keller is a senior partner in the Southern California office.

What’s more, leadership is not something people are born with. Because good leadership is often expressed through behavior rather than personality, it is a skill that can be learned. How? Getting to know oneself is a key first step. The most effective leaders are highly conscious of their own thoughts and beliefs and show up with integrity as their fully authentic selves.

There are many contexts and ways in which leadership is exercised. According to McKinsey analysis of academic literature and a global survey of nearly 200,000 people in 81 organizations, there are four types of behaviors  that account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness:

• being supportive
• operating with a strong orientation toward results
• seeking different perspectives
• solving problems effectively

Effective leaders know that what works in one situation will not necessarily work every time. Leadership strategies must reflect an organization’s context. For example, a situational approach  enables executives to focus on the leadership behaviors that are most relevant to the organization as it evolves.

Learn more about McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice .

What is the journey of leadership?

Most great leaders learn to lead over time. Within organizations, the combination of programs, books, and courses to cultivate these skills is often referred to as “leadership development”—though the results vary.

McKinsey’s latest book, The Journey of Leadership (Portfolio/Penguin Group, September 2024), draws on the authors’ decades of experience guiding the world’s top leaders to become the best versions of themselves. With these insights, the authors have developed a distinctive approach to leadership development, one they believe is more effective than most other programs.

Ramesh Srinivasan and Hans-Werner Kaas are codeans of McKinsey’s Bower Forum CEO leadership development program, where, over the past ten years, more than 500 of the world’s top CEOs and business leaders have bravely confronted personal and professional challenges. Dana Maor is the global cohead and European leader of McKinsey’s People and Organizational Performance Practice, and Kurt Strovink  leads McKinsey’s global CEO Initiative to help build great CEOs and CEO counselors.

Leadership development, according to the book, is a journey of personal growth and improvement that helps a person challenge their current psychological and emotional conditioning. This is often a difficult process because it involves rewiring the habits and behaviors that got them to the top of their game in the first place. For example, skills such as financial acumen, strategic and operational management, and systems thinking are critical for executive roles—but they are not skills known for sparking passion in employees. Put simply, it’s about unlearning management and relearning being human. Human-centric leadership is, as coauthor Hans-Werner Kaas puts it, when leaders “ show up as human beings and behave as such when they interact with their coworkers, whether they lead executive teams or interact with internal or external stakeholders.”

To succeed today, great leaders should be able to carefully balance the following:

• certainty about what they know versus openness to new ideas and approaches—and the confidence to adjust their original plans
• an obsession with financial performance versus the needs of all the company’s shareholders and stakeholders
• being a conservative steward of the business versus taking the occasional bold and well-calculated risk
• being in control versus empowering teams to take initiative
• being a hard-headed professional versus someone who takes a more humane approach

A well-designed and executed leadership development program can help organizations build leaders’ capabilities broadly and at scale. And these programs can be built on coaching, mentoring, and solving challenging problems by applying them in real time to real work.

Looking for direct answers to other complex questions?

What are microhabits.

Dramatic changes in our behavior can happen in small increments. Microhabits are a pragmatic way of improving yourself in measurable, small steps, says Hans-Werner Kaas. These may look very different for different people and will depend on the changes you’re trying to make. In addition to yoga, coauthor Dana Maor has cultivated the habits of not sleeping less than five hours for more than two nights in a row and ensuring she has 15 minutes before every meeting for reflection. Coauthor Ramesh Srinivasan listens to classical Indian music with his wife every morning over a cup of coffee while discussing their intentions for the day.

What is a traditional management style, and what are its limitations?

In the past, leadership was called “management,” with an emphasis on providing technical expertise and direction. In the industrial economy’s traditional, command-and-control organization , leaders focused exclusively on maximizing value for shareholders and had three roles: planners (who develop strategy, then translate that strategy into concrete steps), directors (who assign responsibilities), or controllers (who ensure people do what they’ve been assigned and plans are adhered to).

Traditional management was revolutionary in its day and enormously effective in building large-scale global enterprises that have materially improved lives over the past 200 years. However, as the 21st century marches on, this approach is reaching its limits. For one thing, the management style of leadership doesn’t guarantee happy or loyal managers or workers. Indeed, a large portion of American workers—56 percent— claim their boss is mildly or highly toxic , while 75 percent say dealing with their manager is the most stressful part of their workday.

For organizations operating in today’s complex business environment, a more effective approach to leadership has emerged. Leaders have begun to focus more on building agile , human-centered, and digitally enabled organizations that are able to meet the needs of a broader range of stakeholders: that is, customers, employees, suppliers, and communities, as well as investors.

What is a newer approach to leadership?

This new approach to leadership—what we sometimes call service leadership —is based on a simple idea: rather than directing people, it may be more effective for leaders to be in service of the people they lead. The focus is on how leaders can make the lives of their team members easier—physically, cognitively, and emotionally.

Service leaders practice empathy, compassion, vulnerability, gratitude, self-awareness, and self-care. They provide appreciation and support to employees, creating psychological safety  so their employees are able to collaborate, innovate , and raise issues. This includes celebrating small achievements on the way to reaching big goals and enhancing people’s well-being through better human connections, which have both been shown to enable a team’s best performance.

An example from the COVID-19 pandemic era offers a useful illustration of this new approach. In pursuit of a vaccine breakthrough at the start of the pandemic, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel increased the frequency of executive meetings  from once a month to twice a week. At the same time, the company implemented a decentralized model that enabled teams to work faster and more independently. “The pace was unprecedented,” Bancel said. And the results speak for themselves: Moderna delivered on the bold goal of providing 100 million doses of vaccines in 12 months.

What is the impact of the service leader approach?

This new approach to leadership is far more effective in today’s work environment. While the dynamics are complex, countless studies show empirical links between effective leadership, employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, and profitability. Critically, research suggests that a service leader mentality can enhance  both team performance and satisfaction.

In practice, empowering employees  might mean taking a more hands-on leadership approach. Employees whose leaders empower them to make decisions are also over three times more likely to say that their organization’s delegated decisions were swift and high-quality. But this type of coaching doesn’t always come naturally.

If you’re a leader looking to empower others, here are some tips to get started :

• Provide employees with clear rules, for example, by communicating who makes which decisions. Clarity and boundary structures, such as role remits and responsibilities, help teams stay focused on their primary tasks.
• Avoid being a complicit manager—for instance, if you’ve delegated a decision to a team, don’t step in and solve the problem for them.
• Address culture and skills, for instance, by helping employees learn how to have difficult conversations.
• Solicit personal feedback from others, across all levels of your organization, on how you are performing as a leader.

How can leaders communicate effectively?

Good, clear communication is a leadership hallmark. Some fundamental tools for effective communication  include the following:

• Define and point to long-term goals.
• Listen to and understand stakeholders.
• Create openings for dialogue.
• Communicate proactively.

And in times of uncertainty, these things are important for crisis communicators :

• Give people what they need, when they need it.
• Communicate clearly, simply, and frequently.
• Choose candor over charisma.
• Revitalize a spirit of resilience.
• Distill meaning from chaos.
• Support people, teams, and organizations to build the capability for self-sufficiency.

How can CEOs be successful leaders?

Just as for leaders more broadly, today’s environment requires CEOs to lead very differently than they have in the past. Recent research indicates that between one-third to one-half of new CEOs are deemed to be failing within 18 months .

What helps the best executives thrive? To find out, McKinsey led a research effort to identify the CEOs who achieved breakaway success. We examined 20 years’ worth of data on 7,800 CEOs from 3,500 public companies across 70 countries and 24 industries and distilled our insights in the McKinsey book CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest (Scribner, March 2022). Watch an interview  with the authors for more on what separates the best CEOs from the rest.

Getting perspective on leadership from CEOs themselves is enlightening—and illustrates the nuanced ways in which the new approach to leadership, as described above, can be implemented. Here are a few quotes from McKinsey’s interviews with these top-level leaders :

• “I think the fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo.” — Indra Nooyi , former chair and CEO of PepsiCo
• “Leaders of other enterprises often define themselves as captains of the ship, but I think I’m more the ship’s architect or designer. That’s different from a captain’s role, in which the route is often fixed and the destination defined.” — Zhang Ruimin , founder and former CEO of Haier
• “We need an urgent refoundation of business and capitalism around purpose and humanity—to find new ways for all of us to lead so that we can create a better future, a more sustainable future.” — Hubert Joly , former chair and CEO of Best Buy

What are mentorship, sponsorship, and apprenticeship?

Mentorship, sponsorship, and apprenticeship can also be part of leadership development efforts. Mentorship refers to trusted counselors who offer guidance and support on various professional issues, such as career progression. Sponsorship describes senior leaders who create opportunities to help junior colleagues succeed. These two roles are typically held by more senior colleagues, whereas apprenticeship could be more distributed. Apprenticeship  describes the way any colleague with domain expertise might teach others, model behaviors, or transfer skills. All three of these approaches can be useful not only for developing leaders but also for helping an organization upskill or reskill employees quickly and at scale—which is more critical now, in the age of generative AI , than ever before.

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s insights on People & Organizational Performance . Learn more about McKinsey’s leadership and management  and check out job opportunities  if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced:

• “ Author Talks: A transformational approach to leadership ,” August 8, 2024, Dana Maor , Hans-Werner Kaas, Kurt Strovink , and Ramesh Srinivasan
• “ The ‘inside out’ leadership journey: How personal growth creates the path to success ,” June 17, 2024, Dana Maor , Hans-Werner Kaas, Kurt Strovink , and Ramesh Srinivasan
• “ Why so many bad bosses still rise to the top ,” May 1, 2024, Bryan Hancock and Brooke Weddle
• “ Author Talks: What separates the best CEOs from the rest? ,” December 15, 2021, Carolyn Dewar , Scott Keller , and Vik Malhotra
• “ From the great attrition to the great adaptation ,” November 3, 2021, Aaron De Smet , Bill Schaninger
• “ Reviving the art of apprenticeship to unlock continuous skill development ,” October 21, 2021, Lisa Christensen, Jake Gittleson, Matt Smith, and Heather Stefanski
• “ The boss factor: Making the world a better place through workplace relationships ,” September 22, 2020, Tera Allas  and Bill Schaninger
• “ Leading agile transformation: The new capabilities leaders need to build 21st century organizations ,” October 1, 2018, Aaron De Smet , Michael Lurie, and Andrew St. George
• “ Leadership in context ,” January 1, 2016, Michael Bazigos, Chris Gagnon, and Bill Schaninger
• “ Decoding leadership: What really matters ,” January 1, 2015, Claudio Feser, Fernanda Mayol, and Ramesh Srinivasan

This article was updated in September 2024; it was originally published in August 2022.

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8 Essential Leadership Communication Skills

• 14 Nov 2019

If you want to be an effective leader , you need to excel in communication. In fact, the success of your business relies on it.

According to a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf) , poor communication can lead to low morale, missed performance goals, and even lost sales. A separate study found that inadequate communication can cost large companies an average of $64.2 million per year, while smaller organizations are at risk of losing $420,000 annually.

But effective communication impacts more than just the bottom line. For leaders, it’s what enables them to rally their team around a shared vision, empower employees , build trust, and successfully navigate organizational change .

Why Is Communication Important in Leadership?

A leader is someone who inspires positive, incremental change by empowering those around them to work toward common objectives. A leader’s most powerful tool for doing so is communication.

Effective communication is vital to gain trust, align efforts in the pursuit of goals, and inspire positive change. When communication is lacking, important information can be misinterpreted, causing relationships to suffer and, ultimately, creating barriers that hinder progress.

If you’re interested in enhancing your leadership capabilities, here are eight communication skills you need to be more effective in your role.

Essential Communication Skills for Leaders

1. ability to adapt your communication style.

Different communication styles are the most frequently cited cause of poor communication, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf) , and can lead to more significant issues, such as unclear priorities and increased stress.

It’s essential to identify your leadership style , so that you can better understand how you’re interacting with, and perceived by, employees across the organization. For example, if you’re an authoritative leader , you likely have a clear vision for achieving success and align your team accordingly. While an effective approach for some, it might fall flat for others who seek more autonomy in their role.

Every employee’s motivations are different, so knowing how to tailor your communication is essential to influencing others and reaching organizational goals.

Related: 4 Tips for Developing Your Personal Leadership Style

2. Active Listening

Effective leaders know when they need to talk and, more importantly, when they need to listen. Show that you care by asking for employees’ opinions, ideas, and feedback. And when they do share, actively engage in the conversation—pose questions, invite them to elaborate, and take notes.

It’s important to stay in the moment and avoid interrupting. Keep your focus on the employee and what it is they’re saying. To achieve that, you also need to eliminate any distractions, including constant pings on your cell phone or checking incoming emails.

3. Transparency

In a survey by the American Management Association , more than a third of senior managers, executives, and employees said they “hardly ever” know what’s going on in their organizations. Transparency can go a long way in breaking down that communication barrier.

By speaking openly about the company’s goals, opportunities, and challenges, leaders can build trust amongst their team and foster an environment where employees feel empowered to share their ideas and collaborate. Just acknowledging mistakes can encourage experimentation and create a safe space for active problem-solving.

Every individual should understand the role they play in the company’s success. The more transparent leaders are, the easier it is for employees to make that connection.

When communicating with employees, speak in specifics. Define the desired result of a project or strategic initiative and be clear about what you want to see achieved by the end of each milestone. If goals aren’t being met, try simplifying your message further or ask how you can provide additional clarity or help.

The more clear you are, the less confusion there will be around priorities. Employees will know what they’re working toward and feel more engaged in the process.

5. Ability to Ask Open-Ended Questions

If you want to understand employees’ motivations, thoughts, and goals better, practice asking open-ended questions. Jennifer Currence, president of consulting firm The Currence Group, said to the Society of Human Resource Management to use the acronym TED, which stands for:

• “ T ell me more.”
• “ E xplain what you mean.”
• “ D efine that term or concept for me.”

By leveraging those phrases when speaking with your team, you can elicit more thoughtful, thorough responses and ensure you also have clarity around what they need from you to succeed.

There’s a reason empathy has been ranked the top leadership skill needed for success . The better you get at acknowledging and understanding employees’ feelings and experiences, the more heard and valued they’ll feel.

In a recent survey (pdf) , 96 percent of respondents said it was important for their employers to demonstrate empathy, yet 92 percent claimed it remains undervalued. If you want to improve your communication and build a stronger, more productive culture, practice responding with empathy.

Related: Emotional Intelligence Skills: What They Are & How to Develop Them

7. Open Body Language

Communication isn’t just what you say; it’s how you carry yourself. Ninety-three percent of communication’s impact comes from nonverbal cues, according to executive coach Darlene Price .

To ensure you’re conveying the right message, focus on your body language. If you’re trying to inspire someone, talking with clenched fists and a furrowed brow isn’t going to send the right message. Instead, make eye contact to establish interest and rapport and flash a genuine smile to convey warmth and trust.

8. Receiving and Implementing Feedback

Asking for feedback from your team can not only help you grow as a leader, but build trust among your colleagues. It’s critical, though, that you don’t just listen to the feedback. You also need to act on it.

If you continue to receive feedback from your team, but don’t implement any changes, they’re going to lose faith in your ability to follow through. It’s likely there will be comments you can’t immediately act on—be transparent about that. By letting your employees know they were heard and then apprising them of any progress you can, or do, make, they’ll feel as though you value their perspective and are serious about improving.

Related: How to Give Feedback Effectively

Improving Your Leadership Communication

Communication is at the core of effective leadership. If you want to influence and inspire your team, you need to practice empathy and transparency, and understand how others perceive you, through your verbal and non-verbal cues.

To improve your communication skills and become a better leader, begin by assessing your effectiveness so you can identify areas for improvement. Then, set goals and hold yourself accountable by creating a leadership development plan to guide and track your progress.

Do you want to enhance your leadership skills? Download our free leadership e-book and explore our online course Leadership Principles to discover how you can become a more effective leader and unleash the potential in yourself and others.

(This post was updated on June 16, 2020. It was originally published on November 14, 2019.)

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Home Powerpoint Business Leadership PowerPoint Presentation Templates

Leadership PowerPoint Presentation Templates

The Leadership PowerPoint Presentation Templates is a professional and engaging tool designed to help you convey key leadership principles, strategies, and best practices. Featuring modern illustrations and a clean, blue-themed design, this PowerPoint templates on leadership is ideal for presenting leadership development, team dynamics, and management concepts. The visual metaphor of leaders guiding others to the top of a mountain embodies the essence of leadership, making the content both relatable and impactful for your audience.

This template includes a variety of slides, such as leadership theory breakdowns, team collaboration visuals, comparison charts, historical leadership timelines, and change management strategies. Whether you’re discussing leadership styles, corporate culture, or team-building techniques, this template ensures your message is delivered with clarity and authority. The template’s structure supports storytelling, making it perfect for workshops, corporate training sessions, or strategic presentations where leadership topics are central.

Leadership presentation slides are created for business professionals, educators, motivational speakers, students, and anyone seeking professional growth to learn and cope with leadership development skills.  These 20 slides of leadership presentation template have the following concepts and leadership themes in white and blue combination.   

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• Four section infographics  
• The leader- human illustration   
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• Conclusion slide  
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Leadership Topics for Presentation

Have a presentation or a meeting coming up? Need to find leadership training topics to present on or leadership topics for discussion? The Leadership Mission has you covered! Below is our list of leadership training topics, leadership topics for discussion, leadership exercises and leadership team building activities we have compiled that are impactful for leaders at any level. These are designed to get your wheels turning and have proven to be successful across many different organizations.

Want to jump quickly to one particular section? Here are some helpful links!

Leadership Training Topics

Leadership Topics for Presentation and Discussion

Leadership Team Building Activities

Leadership exercises.

The following leadership training topics are great for leaders at any level. These work best in smaller meetings or groups. These topics are designed to generate great discussion and hopefully yield higher functioning managers.

Soft skills

Soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. These are critically important in today's workforce as now more than ever our workforces require employees to be able to communicate, work as a team, listen and get along with others. Here is a very brief list of soft skills but this topic is HUGE and you could easily turn each of these topics into presentations.

Communication

Problem-solving

Time management

Critical thinking

Decision-making

Organizational

Stress management

Adaptability

Conflict management

Resourcefulness

Openness to criticism

Change management

Today's world changes faster than arguably any other time in history. Between 24 hour news cycles, social media and the explosion in communication methods between individuals, managing change is an essential skill any leader must have. There are a couple of excellent books on this topic by John Kotter called Leading Change and Our Iceberg is Melting. You can also have a good discussion about how your team deals with change and how much change your organization has (or hasn't) had over the years.

Managing effective meetings

Meetings consume so much of the average working person's time. No matter what kind of job you have, meetings are most likely a part of their day or week at some point. How effective are your people at running effective meetings? When was the last time anyone ever thought about it?

A great subtopic for this presentation can be a study and/or game you can play with your attendees call meeting or email? I'm sure you could easily find a handful of examples of meetings that could have been emails (and vice versa) and let your attendees have some fun guessing. Don't be surprised when your team becomes very candid during this meeting about the need for meetings!

Performance management

Managing the performance of others is an extremely important part of any leader's job. Leader's must also be managers and cannot simply rely on connecting with and "leading" people. At the end of the day, we all have hard metrics we are responsible for. One of the most important ones, is the performance of those that work for us.

This topic doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should and I guarantee you can get some good discussions going around the most effective way to do this for you organization. You can discuss how often this happens, annually, bi-annually, monthly? You can discuss what format it is done in and how the teams respond to them. Get your groups thoughts on the effectiveness of your current system and brainstorm if there isn't a better way.

The Six Styles of Leadership

Developed by Daniel Goleman, the six styles have been a staple part of the discussion around situational leadership for awhile. They describe the different ways you need to lead depending on the situation, the people and various other factors. There is plenty of discussion to be had with this topic and is great for new leaders!

The six styles are as follows:

Visionary — mobilize people toward a vision. Works best when a clear direction or change is needed.

Coaching — develop people for the future. Works best when helping people and building long-term strength.

Affiliative — create emotional bonds and harmony. Works best to heal rifts in teams or motivate people in stressful times.

Democratic — build consensus through participation. Works best to create consensus or get input.

Pacesetting — expect excellence and self-direction. Works best to get quick results from a highly competent team.

Commanding — demand immediate compliance. Works best in crisis or with problematic people.

Managing an inbox

This is something that gets taken for granted all of the time and would make a great leadership topic for presentation. The organization, efficiency and 'cleanliness' of inboxes today can be a sensitive subject. No one wants to admit to having thousands of unread emails just sitting there but chances are, most of your leaders do.

How do you as a company manage that? When was the last time anyone cared? Effective inbox organization can do wonders in taking a manager from good to great. It might also get a good conversation started around communication as a whole in your organization.

Managing a calendar

Just like the inbox, calendar's are criminally misused or underused. They can be a great way to manage the obvious things like meetings and calls. However, they can also be a great way to hold teams accountable, document what you did for reflection and serve as a sort of task list for leaders.

Don't make the assumption that everyone knows how to use the calendars. Technology changes so fast and new features come out all of the time. Even if someone in leadership learned how to use outlook ten years ago in college, it might be completely different now!

Leadership Topics For Presentation & Discussion

This section is about topics that make for great discussions or presentations. Whether it be a small group or large one, these topics are always important in the world of business today.

Virtual leadership

Thanks to 2020, so many of us have had to get used to working virtually, which means we've also had to lead virtually as well. This topic is sure to generate discussion on what is working, not working and how everyone feels about it.

This is sure to be an important topic moving forward as companies must decide what their "new normal" is going to be. You might be surprised at how effective or ineffective working virtually is/was. It might open the door to other conversations surrounding flexibility in the workplace.

Most businesses come down to some sort of execution. Whether it be making widgets, serving guests, healing patients or selling goods, every business has some sort of metric when it comes to executing the core function of the business. When was the last time you discussed not only the results but overall execution as a whole? Can you guarantee that the way things are supposed to be done are actually being done?

Additionally, you can discuss training of new hires, repair and maintenance of equipment, employee productivity and anything that goes into actually getting the job done.

When was the last time your organization had a conversation about your company culture? Are expectations meeting reality? Does your team/company know what culture they are supposed to be creating? Having an open and honest conversation about your company culture is a healthy exercise for any company.

It is extremely important that there be a strong moderator for this conversation as it is easy to go off the rails with this subject. That statement shouldn't dissuade you from having the conversation though! A great book on this topic is Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Company specific leadership topics for discussion/presentation

Do you have specific tasks, goals, metrics or items that your leaders should be discussing with their teams? Have you set an agenda that is being pushed down through the organization? Putting together a list similar to this specific for your team might be helpful for your mid level leaders. This list can give them a clean and easily accessible company approved list of topics they should be discussing with their teams.

Giving your leaders a list of exercises that they could practice either by themselves or with their teams makes a great leadership training topic. It is always extremely important to develop yourself as a leader and the other leaders in your organization. Here are some leadership exercises to get you started.

Quality circles

This isn't so much a topic as an activity but is highly effective, especially if your group allows for crossover from different departments, regions, etc. It is amazing how sometimes just putting a fresh set of eyes on a situation can create positive discussions or solutions around a problem. Spend some times thinking about your attendees and split them into smaller groups.

Come up with a top 5 list of challenges or obstacles that each group might be facing and have them discuss it in a "nameless & rankless" frank discussion. Assign a note taker to each group and charge them with capturing key points and takeaways and for keeping the group on point.

Difficult leadership situations

This is a great topic to discuss with your leaders, especially if your group has a good mix of leadership experience and tenure in it. The following situations are always important to talk about and discuss/share with other leaders. The growth that can come from just talking through some of these situations is priceless. Depending on the size of your group, you can either discuss as a whole or break into small groups and have them discuss the following topics:

Dealing with difficult or problem employees

Handling your team's stress and pressure

Letting someone go

Delivering bad news

Leading an initiative you don't agree with

Managing underperforming employees

Internal leadership challenges

This often gets such little attention, yet is one of the most important factors leaders must deal with, their own feelings. Managing your own emotions and generally how you feel about something is way easier said than done. Just like the previous item, having a good mix of leadership experience and tenure is a great.

Just talking about how their fellow leaders handle the following topics can be vitally important for new leaders and great reminders and encouragement for experienced leaders. Unlike the previous item though, it is crucially important that attendees feel comfortable being open. It is one thing to talk about topics that impact others or are conceptual and something entirely different to discuss personal struggles!

Staying humble

Self confidence

Overcoming fear

Handling personal stress and pressure

Avoiding burnout

Staying motivated

Compartmentalizing competing priorities

Keeping work life balance

Situational leadership scenarios

Situational leadership is extremely important in today's modern workforce. Diversity of all types in employee bases has exploded in the last several decades. That means managers and leaders cannot treat everyone the same. A leader that understands using different leadership styles with different people and at different times is critical.

Develop some scenarios that are relevant to your group and ask them to decide how they would approach one differently over another. There is a fantastic book written by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson on this topic called the One Minute Manager that is a quick read and is very beneficial to new leaders!

The following items are great team builders for small groups or meetings in any professional setting. They are designed to bring team's together, develop teamwork and give any observing leaders some data points about their people!

Build a building

Break your group into small even teams and provide them with their building materials consisting of any combination of the following:

index cards

tooth picks

playing cards

Don't stress over which materials you give them, just as long as it is enough to build a free standing building with! The object is simple, which team can build the largest free standing structure.

Things to consider with this activity:

How will you divide your teams? Be purposeful in how you break them up

Have the teams assign a 'project manager' ahead of time

Take mental notes of how the teams interact and how the assigned managers perform

Qualities of a leader

Break employees into teams and have them share leaders they admire (in any industry). Take notes on the characteristics that these leaders share, then give employees time and space to reflect on the characteristics they share with those leaders before identifying skills they would like to develop in themselves

Use employee notes on skills they would like to develop to design your own training opportunities.

Use employee notes and compare them to your organization. A sort of 'expectations vs reality' mental exercise.

These lists are in no way exhaustive we just think these leadership training activities are great for effective presentations or meetings that will grow the leadership abilities of your team! We'd love to hear from you in the comments below! Or feel free to shoot us an email [email protected]

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More From Forbes

10 Most Important Leadership Skills For The 21st Century Workplace (And How To Develop Them)

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With the rise of the gig economy and with many companies adopting flatter, more flexible organizational structures , now is the perfect time to refocus on what good leadership looks like. Because, in our rapidly changing workplaces, leadership will apply to more people than ever before. You may be overseeing a project that requires you to coordinate several team members. Or you may be a gig worker collaborating with other gig workers. Or you may be occupying a traditional management role. Whatever your job title, this precious ability to bring out the best in people will be a vital part of success.

Of course, being a good leader really requires us to polish up multiple skills at once. Here are ten skills that I think are essential for leaders – with a few pointers on how to develop them.

1. Motivating others

The ability to motivate others is all part of inspiring people to be the best they can be. So how can you better motivate others?

· Ensure people know how their role contributes to the company’s vision. That their work matters, basically.

· Be clear on what you need people to do, why, and when. But, importantly, give people the autonomy to accomplish those tasks their way.

· Show your appreciation and celebrate success.

2. Fostering potential

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Great leaders look for potential, not performance. Here are three ways to foster potential:

· Don’t fall into the trap of getting people to think and act like you. Encourage them to think and act like them.

· Let people know that it’s okay to fail sometimes. This is all part of inspiring people to take risks, step outside their comfort zone and test new ideas.

· Don’t let people grow complacent. Encourage them to develop their skills and think about the next stage of their career, whatever that may be.

3. Inspiring trust

What makes a leader trustworthy? The following behaviors are a good start:

· Being ethical. This means being honest and transparent, keeping promises, and generally making sure you don't say one thing and then do another.

· Making your values clear and, of course, living those values.

· Standing up for what you believe in.

4. Taking on and giving up responsibility

Good leaders take on responsibility, but they also know when to let go of responsibility and delegate to others. When doing this, try to:

· Play to the strengths of those around you and allocate responsibility accordingly.

· Ensure people have the knowledge, resources, and tools they need to succeed.

· Decide how you'll monitor progress without micromanaging. For example, you can agree on how the person will report back to you and how often – as well as the best way for them to raise any questions.

5. Thinking strategically

Strategic thinking requires leaders to take a wider view, so they can solve business problems and make a long-term plan for the future. To enhance your strategic thinking skills:

· Remember the difference between urgent and important . Urgent fire-fighting tasks can suck up a lot of your time and energy, leaving very little bandwidth for those things that are important from a big-picture perspective but not urgent. Constantly remind yourself of your priorities, and manage your time accordingly.

· Use critical thinking to gather data and find solutions to your most pressing strategic questions. For example, “Where will our growth come from in three or five years’ time?”

· Don’t rely on assumptions or gut instincts when answering such questions.

6. Setting goals and expectations for everyone

Setting goals is a great way to drive performance. But have you considered a more dynamic way of setting goals?

· Instead of the traditional, top-down approach (where leadership sets strategic goals, then managers set goals for teams and individuals), you might like to consider the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) approach.

· With OKRs, leadership sets some strategic OKRs for the business, then each team and individual designs their own OKRs that contribute to achieving the company's strategic OKRs.

· OKRs should be simple and agile. Forget annual goal-setting; OKRs are typically set on a monthly or quarterly basis.

If you’d like to know more about OKRs, check out my related articles .

7. Giving (and receiving) feedback

Good leaders are able to give and receive feedback, both positive and negative (or, as I prefer to call it, constructive). When it comes to giving people constructive feedback:

· Don’t put it off. You don’t want to overwhelm someone with a loooong list of everything they’re getting wrong. Instead, have a process in place for regular catchups, where you can chat through progress and give feedback.

· Don’t dilute constructive feedback with praise. While it’s important to regularly give people praise, I wouldn’t do it at the same time as constructive feedback. When you sandwich negative comments with a positive comment on either side, there's a risk the person may only hear the good stuff.

· Be specific, not emotional. Just treat it as a straightforward conversation, using specific, concrete examples instead of opinions or emotions.

8. Team building

A good leader is a bit like a football manager in that they have to pick strong players who perform different roles and then shape those players into a cohesive unit. As part of this:

· Remember, each person will bring their own unique skills and experiences, be motivated by different things, have different working styles, and so on. Embrace this rather than trying to get everyone to behave the same way.

· Model the behaviors you want to see: connecting as human beings, showing an interest, listening to each other, treating people with respect and dignity, and supporting one another.

· Give feedback and reward a job well done.

9. Positivity

If you show up with a negative “this won’t work, that thing sucks, why do we bother” kind of attitude, it’ll soon spread throughout your team. Here’s how to lead from a place of positivity:

· Think carefully about the language you use, verbally and in writing. Use words with positive connotations – turning a “problem” into an “opportunity” being a prime example.

· Celebrate successes, big and small. Highlighting the little wins frequently can be just as impactful as sporadically celebrating the big wins.

· Resist the urge to complain in front of your team. As Tom Hanks says to his band of soldiers in Saving Private Ryan , "Gripes go up, not down. Always up."

10. Authenticity

For me, being an authentic leader is a key part of building trust. So as well as being ethical (see earlier), you’ll want to:

· Practice self-awareness. A good leader is aware of their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

· Be open about those weaknesses rather than trying to hide them.

· Bring your whole self to work, as opposed to having one persona for work and one outside of work.

To stay on top of future trends and future skills, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter and have a look at my new book, Future Skills: The 20 Skills & Competencies Everyone Needs To Succeed In A Digital World .

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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