3 Skills Every Leader Should Practice

Diverse Group of Executives Applauding African Female CEO

To grow as a leader and become more successful, learn these three skills.

CEOs and entrepreneurs come from a wide variety of backgrounds with a diverse range of skills that give each of us a unique approach to business. Where we learn those skills varies, from childhood experiences to formal education, but inevitably every CEO has a few gaps. Continuing to learn and develop your skills over your career is an important factor in your success, and most entrepreneurs I’ve met are also eager learners, always looking for ways to grow as leaders and as people. Personally, I’m a big believer in the power of mentorship and coaching to accelerate your skills in any area of business.

This adaptable attitude is essential for success, and it often leads to higher levels of creativity and better problem-solving. For many entrepreneurs, if there’s a skill you need that you don’t have, you’ll simply find the resources to learn it. But all skills take practice, and while it can be straightforward to learn hard skills like business accounting or how to use specific software, some skills have to be cultivated over a long period of time.

Here are three skills that I’ve learned that have helped me develop into a better business leader. These often aren’t taught to us in school, but I think they can help you strengthen your leadership skills for success.

Curiosity: Ask better questions

Curiosity may seem like something inherent to your character rather than a skill, but it can be cultivated and grown like any other skill. Curiosity is vital for the business leader because it is one of the primary drivers of growth, and it is necessary to learn new things. When was the last time you tried to learn something you had no curiosity about? Chances are it wasn’t very easy to grasp.

Curiosity also leads you to ask better questions of yourself and others. Learning to form strong questions helps you understand the root of a problem, discover your motivations and the motivations of others, and find creative solutions. Question-asking is a skill that takes a great deal of practice, and the better questions you ask, the better answers you’ll get. Often the right question is the key to solving a problem, closing a deal, resolving a conflict, or learning what you need to know. To begin developing your question-asking skills, try to approach every situation with curiosity, with the understanding that there’s always something important to be learned. The more questions you ask, the more likely you are to find the right question that reveals what you need to know.

Technical communication: Give clear instructions

One of the most important skills for a business leader is strong communication, a skill that never stops developing over a lifetime because communication is complex and nuanced. Communication is vital for a number of purposes and critical in your ability to lead because it is the method through which you give instructions to your team. The clarity of those instructions (and their diplomacy) can make or break the outcome of whatever you’re asking.

A method to improve your communication and ability to instruct is to learn about technical writing. Technical writing is all about clarity and giving sound, easy-to-interpret instructions. Think about the instructions you get with a piece of furniture you need to assemble-;if the technical writer was good at their job, the assembly is easy. If they weren’t, it can take you hours longer to assemble the furniture than it should.

The same goes for your team. That doesn’t mean you have to spell out every step like an instruction manual. But learning to communicate your expectations, desired outcomes, deadlines, and responsibilities will make you a stronger leader.

Trust: Let go of projects

A skill that every business leader must learn as their business grows is how to trust others with important responsibilities. This can be a painful skill to learn and is often against the nature of many entrepreneurs who like to be involved in every aspect of the business. However, learning to train and empower and establish accountability, then hand off responsibilities to others is necessary for growth. The more tasks you’re able to delegate, the more time you’ll have a leader to work on important tasks to grow the business.

As a leader, your time is valuable, so it’s not profitable for you to spend time working on tasks that can be accomplished by someone else. If you’ve learned to ask strong questions and communicate effectively, trusting your team members to take over projects for you is much easier.

Let’s face it: We all have room for improvement. I encourage you to intentionally prioritize continuous growth by using your curiosity to fuel innovation, refining communication for clarity, and trusting your teams for company growth. By nurturing these focused skills, leaders not only enhance their own effectiveness but also foster a culture of learning and empowerment within their organizations, propelling them towards sustainable success.

This post originally appeared at inc.com.

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