A few weeks ago, someone sent me a question by e-mail, "What are the skills that a Human Resource professional must possess or cultivate so as to make it to business related strategic roles? Please guide!"
The first thing came to my mind was about communication skills (whether or not the leadership role is strategic in nature). Nowadays, I fear, this skill is becoming a rare one! Communication is not just about speaking incessantly. Many who speak fluently believe that they are good (effective) communicators-that need not be true always! Effective communication is about making sure that one gets to know exactly what others mean, and others understand one's views unambiguously. A leader has to ensure that the views expressed by the team members (more importantly, the central theme of a discussion) are understood consistently by the entire team. A good leader first understands an idea herself by asking many clarifying (and leading) questions, and then she paraphrases the idea for the benefit of the entire team. The leader continues to repeat this process until everybody in the team understands the idea the same way. All the members of a team formed to undertake a serious and important task must certainly have exactly the same understanding of the problem to be solved, and the solution/strategy they choose to implement. So, the time taken on effective communication of this kind is well spent. To me, effective communication skill is an essential attribute for all leaders, and for leaders on strategic roles in particular.
Excellent thoughts. This reminds me of some directions we learned in one of my favorite soft-skills courses I have ever done. The course was on Consulting skills. In addition to communication one must 'sell' their idea or decision. It's sell and not hard-sell - selling with arguments/counter-arguments resulting in win-win situation in most ethical manner (without fooling others). One thing I still remember and I strive to follow is that the ultimate win for a consultant is to be establishing oneself as the trusted advisor to one's customers.
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