CEO Bootcamp: The skills to keep you on top

The path to leadership differs from one person to another. Few of us are born into leadership (that’s mainly royalty…) and most of us have to cultivate the skills we need. But most airport business books focus on the visible skills: sales, negotiation, motivating teams. Underneath those is a raft of invisible skills that will at the very least make a difference to your management effectiveness, and quite possibly change the outcomes in your business.

Decision-making

Decision-making is only an issue when the decision is a hard one to make – say, picking the lesser of two unpleasant courses of action. The best decisions can often be made without dwelling on them. Start with your desired goal in mind and measure the options – even the tough ones – in that light. Think about the most effective route to those goals, step by step. Judge the likelihood of success or failure. By removing emotionality from the situation, you will make the job much easier.

Use data and information to influence your decision-making (we’re here to be effective, not reckless), and you may also consider simple models such as SWOT analyses to refine your goal or your means of getting there. In this way, decision-making can be a choice based on circumstances and facts. 

Communication skills

This is really about communicating honestly and authentically. Leaders don't have to detach themselves from the "shop floor" to be leaders. Be clear and purposeful in what you say and do. Don’t tie yourself up in management-speak and jargon. 

For example, in hard times, people appreciate the honesty in saying that business is on a downturn and that we have to lose some colleagues, rather than covering up the problem and talking about “resource realignment” or, worse still, barefaced lying. Good leaders seek to use communication as a tool to bring their teams along with them; duplicity will only create friction. 

Play to the strengths of your own personality and don’t try to present yourself as something you’re not. If you’re a thoughtful, methodical person, that’s fine – people will appreciate your thoughtfulness as much as they would a superstar performer. 

Public relations

PR is not the same as communication skills: it's about how messages are managed by leaders and their companies. Although PR is seen as something of a dark art, that’s not entirely fair; it's about saying the right thing at the right time and, as we saw above, being authentic about it. PR is also about learning what not to say.

If you make a mistake - to customers, employees or stakeholders - simply saying sorry is greatly appreciated. Don't try to cover issues up if they exist: be honest, genuine, and humble, but then begin to own the crisis by being seen to be effective at resolving it. When you act to move a problem forward towards its resolution, you then own the narrative and can respond to the press with a clear update on your efforts. 

Delegation

Founder-leaders of companies which they have built themselves often find it particularly hard to delegate. And there’s no answer to this: it will be hard! It’s simply a challenge you must swallow. 

If you want your team, department, or business to thrive and scale, there is no alternative to delegation – there are only 24 hours in a day, and yours are already full! Mitigate the risk by giving as much knowledge as you can to your team upfront, and challenge them to taking on new responsibilities (you’ll be surprised how well people respond to being stretched).  

Delegation makes you more, not less, of a leader, and builds your own confidence because you can relax in the support and expertise of a team which you helped to build, and whom you're helping to empower. 

Coaching and Mentoring 

Coaching opens up new ways to look at ourselves, to understand how our behaviours, emotions, and life outside of work affects our life in work - and vice versa. If there’s one thing that unites leaders, it’s their ability to seek advice constantly from other people – particularly mentors who have a track record and experience to offer. There's a different style of coaching for everyone, and it’s an intensely personal relationship, so explore the options.

Consider becoming a mentor yourself. Many leaders coach less advantaged, younger people in their communities; or other entrepreneurs – and they invariably find it as rewarding and informative an experience as being coached themselves. 

Strategy

Strategy is a misunderstood word. It is part of the thought process in a business plan:  

1. Define a vision - a desired end state. 

2. Develop a strategy - a set of self-contained steps which, in total, will generate the end state. 

3. Produce the tactics to deliver those steps.  

If your vision is to become the market leader in sprockets by the end of the year, then your strategy might contain such steps as increasing sprocket production, telling the market why sprockets are fabulous and investigating new sprocket technologies. Strategy isn't something amorphous - it's a way of thinking through high-level priorities. 

Empathy 

Leaders are always being told to “put themselves in their customers' shoes” in order to make their businesses successful. But how often do you put yourself in your employees' shoes? What is their view of your workplace and people? Leaders can be tone deaf at this, not understanding the hassles which affect the shop floor daily.

Try to think about the employee experience of those around you, and ensure that you get the small-but-irritating blockers out of the way – they create as much inertia as the bigger challenges. This will also build your credentials as an authentic, empathetic leader who is a champion of the company’s culture. 

Innovation

It was Apple co-founder Steve Jobs who said that innovation is the difference between a leader and a follower. Innovation is a confluence of understanding market needs, building new products and solving challenges without the luxury of a roadmap to follow. 

The challenge with innovation is that we all naturally fall back on “what we did yesterday”. We all have a default position which is neither challenging nor revolutionary. Smart companies stay innovative by encouraging feedback (everything from the ‘suggestion box’ to company awaydays) and creating ‘skunkworks’ of teams, often physically separated from the main operation, to develop new ideas. 

Time management

Leaders are under pressure, and this will only get worse. Time management certainly benefits from the Pareto Principle (80% of value comes from 20% of your time), and managers should certainly get ruthless at enforcing this, but the big challenge these days is likely to be distraction management. Emails, calls, and an increasing number of instant messaging services can easily destroy even the best-planned agenda. 

Switch them all off. Delegate. Make time for yourself (thinking time is genuinely useful). And choose your media carefully: a 10-minute conference call beats a long chain of argumentative emails every time. Keep meetings short, and don't be afraid to politely cut meetings short if they aren't going anywhere.