Leadership can often seem like an unattainable goal for most people. The qualities we admire most in our leaders seem to come so naturally and easily to them, while many others struggle to find ways to find their voice to manage and lead effectively. No matter what career path you may be wading through or hoping to move toward, leaderships skills are vital to your success. Don’t despair if you’re not a natural born leader. There are plenty of easy ways to improve your leadership skills. Here are some top tips to help you down the right track.

Start small. Moving up the corporate ladder doesn’t happen overnight, just as improving your leadership skills will take a bit of time as well. Before you can start leading a Fortune 500 company, you’ve got to take baby steps. Find projects at work, such as interdepartmental or corporate initiatives, that you can volunteer with and hone your leadership skills there. If no such opportunities exist at your current office, look into external organisations, clubs, or social groups that may be in need of help to discover and develop your personal leadership style.

Know your strengths. Everyone is born with their own set of natural skills, talents, and strengths. Instead of trying to conform and force someone else’s unique qualities on yourself, discover where your leadership skills and capabilities lie and take advantage of them. By embracing your true self and own innate strengths, you will be a more effective leader than when trying to lead through someone else’s leadership style.

Find your passion. True leaders are those who are genuinely and intensely passionate about their work or cause. If you couldn’t care less about something, how can you possibly hope to inspire others to? Passion and enthusiasm are vital qualities in great leaders, and it’s extremely difficult to convey either convincingly if it’s fake. Instead of trying to be a leader of merely anything, find the right cause and purpose to optimise your existing interests, passions, and motivation, which in turn will allow you to be a better leader. 

Communicate more effectively. Great leaders can clearly communicate their vision, expectations, and goals to others. Without effective communication, there can be no successful leader. If you find yourself having difficulty driving your message, work on remedying that immediately. Be sure to include listening, nonverbal, and moderation skills to your communication repertoire. 

Admit and learn from your failures. Ask any leader and there will no doubt be a failure story behind their success. It’s not uncommon for leaders to have experienced a setback (or several) before achieving their goals. The biggest difference between a failure experienced by a great leader and not a great leader is the former’s ability to admit to their shortcomings and to learn from the experience. If we fail and cannot look within ourselves to discover our mistakes and improve in the next iteration, we are doomed to repeat our failures. To be a true leader, turn your failure into a learning opportunity and move forward from there. After a setback, hold a team meeting and start by discussing your own accountability, then turn the meeting into a team 
discussion for what went wrong and what changes need to be implemented. Avoid assigning blame to anyone and certainly do not allow others to point fingers either.

Spread the success. The best leaders in the world recognise that success is a result of a variety of moving parts, especially to the people who helped and supported the goal along the way. With each and every milestone, take a moment to recognise your success as their success and vice versa to foster a sense of pride, ownership, and collaboration with your entire team. Amplify accomplishments and offer praise (even rewards) whenever possible.