What are the keys to leadership? In the end, it is becoming adept at these 5 things: Understanding, Persuading, Presenting, Negotiating, and Communicating.

1. Understanding. This is the most important! Who is your audience? What are their needs? How do they like to be treated? What turns them off? If you cannot answer these questions, you need to work on understanding. The DiSC® profile can be a great resource for this.

2. Persuading: To sell your agenda internally you have to learn how to be able to convince others. To do this you need to really understand your audience.

3. Presenting. As a leader you will be asked to make presentations. Practice, Practice, Practice. Presenters are made not born.

4. Negotiating. Negotiation skills are critical to resolve conflicts and to make a good deal even better.

5. Communicating. Great leaders are great communicators; it’s a critical success skill. They make sure that the message they are sending is the one that people are receiving.

From Lessons in Leadership – A seminar by Dr. Mimi Hull