Question
Rank 1 – 5, from least (1) to most critical (5), the leadership skills you feel are the most critical for business leaders to possess. Include a brief justification for your rankings in your responses.
__ Proactive Mentorship
__ Ability to Delegate
__ Encourages Creativity
__ Transformational Perspective
__ Ethical Disposition
Sample paper
Important Leadership Skills
Ethical Disposition (5)
Ethical disposition is the most important leadership skill for business leaders to possess. A study by Smalley, Retallick, Metzger, and Greiman (2016) found that accountability was the most important leadership skill among agribusiness professionals. A leader can only be accountable when he/she has an ethical disposition.
Transformational Perspective (4)
Transformational perspective is an important leadership skill for business leaders to possess. A transformational perspective enables leaders to influence change among the followers. Bearing this leadership skill enables a leader to bring positive and valuable change among followers. Having this skill enables a leader to impart other skills to his followers with ease.
Proactive Mentorship (3)
Proactive mentorship is about taking corrective actions to behaviors before they manifest themselves. A leader should be able to steer employees in the right direction before things go wrong in the organization. Proactive mentorship is important since it enables the leader to influence the organizational culture or the behavior of employees.
Ability to Delegate (2)
A leader should be able to delegate tasks to employees while considering their relevant qualifications, skills, and experiences in handling similar tasks. Delegating tasks enables work to be done in an effective way. The leader should delegate tasks early and ensure effective communication with the subordinates.
Encourages Creativity (1)
Encouraging creativity is the least important leadership skill according to the ranking. Encouraging creativity is about influencing employees to develop their own unique solutions to problems. This skill was ranked the least important because employees may be creative on their own without the input of a leader.
References
Smalley, S. W., Retallick, M. S., Metzger, D., & Greiman, B. (2016). Analysis of leadership perceptions, skills and traits as perceived by agribusiness and industry professionals. NACTA Journal, 60(1), 43-48.
