2024.10.17

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In part 1 of Elements of Exceptional Modern Leadership, we explored the leadership essentials that every leader – back in the day, now, and in the future – needs to dial in. Namely managing yourself, managing others, maintaining and growing your discipline-specific knowledge, setting vision and strategy, and honing executive skills. Read part 1.

Here in part 2 of the series, we’re going to talk about the six fundamentals of contemporary leadership.

It used to be that demonstrating everything on this list was something only the very best leaders could ever do. Nowadays, it is expected that most leaders are honing their competency in: emotional intelligence, leading change, managing conflict, strategically allocating resources, cultivating culture, and maintaining resilience and personal well-being.

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6 Contemporary Leadership Fundamentals

1. Emotional Intelligence

Modern leaders need a fairly high level of emotional intelligence. This includes being aware of and interacting with our own emotions, having a decent grasp of others’ emotional expressions, and a variety of related skills and competencies for demonstrating interpersonal savvy. Commonly self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills (e.g., communication) are the major areas of focus.

2. Change Leadership

In today’s VUCA world, all leaders need to understand both the technicalities of, and human-side of, leading change. Effectively leading change is its own distinct skillset – winging it doesn’t cut it.

3. Conflict Management

Effective leaders accept that conflict will occur, and they view it neutrally – knowing it’s not inherently good or bad. They understand the various styles of conflict engagement and avoidance as well as the pros and cons for different mitigating or amplifying approaches.

4. Strategic Resource Allocation

Facility with strategic resource allocation is critical for today’s leaders. This includes understanding and making hard decisions about how to source, finance, and assign resources (e.g., budget, staff, infrastructure) for the short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term.

5. Cultivating Culture

Cultivating and perpetuating an intentional organizational culture is no longer a “nice to have” skill. Leaders need to understand how formal processes and policies and informal norms and practices at the team, business unit, division, and organizational level all matter – as well as the example set by all leaders’ individual and collective choices and actions.

6. Resilience and Personal Well-Being

And finally, while burnout and self-sacrifice are still far too common, today’s best leaders have taken seriously the importance of their own resilience and personal well-being. Not relegated to something they deal with only during “off time”, but rather considering their own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health an integral part of their skillset and demonstrated competency as leaders.

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Contemporary Leadership Skills as Burnout Prevention

Proficiency in the first five contemporary skill areas is important for burnout prevention. The stress and energy drain that comes from being underdeveloped in even a single area cannot be overstated.

And proficiency in the last skill – resilience and personal well-being – is the direct guard against getting depleted, running past your capacity, and burning out (as high-achieving, mission-driven leaders are prone to).

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Your Next Actions

Now that we’ve reviewed the six contemporary fundamentals of leadership, take a few minutes to reflect.

1. Jot down which areas you could use some professional development in.

2. What are two concrete steps you’ll take this week?

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We’ll conclude this series next time in part 3 with some more cutting-edge leadership competencies. These might be things you’ve never heard of so be sure to stay tuned.

If you found value in this content, please do us a favor and share this post with your network.

Continue to part 3: The Future of Leadership Skills.

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