7 Leadership Skills to Develop During the Slower Summer Season

As a high-powered financial executive, senior leader, or critical decision-maker, you’re likely to welcome the slower pace of the summer season with open arms. Finally, your calendar breathes with more flexibility. Yet, it’s crucial to keep this newfound time from slipping through your fingers. Summer presents an exceptional chance for personal and professional advancement—vital advancements for maintaining your competitive edge.

Wondering where to begin? Focus on developing these seven leadership skills during the next couple of months so you can approach fall with new or enhanced abilities, ready to tackle challenges with unparalleled excellence.

1. Focus

Leverage your additional bandwidth to sharpen your concentration skills. Whether you aim to complete tasks faster or align with your team’s overarching goals, focus is an indispensable skill for any leader. Succumbing to constant distractions can hinder your progress, leading you to pursue tasks of little significance. On the other hand, by cultivating and enhancing your focus, you’ll discover that your decision-making improves, boosting your productivity.

Numerous strategies exist to cultivate enhanced focus. For instance, you can boost your mental clarity with techniques such as mindfulness or meditation. Employing time management methods, such as time blocking, can also minimize distractions and bolster your connection. Additionally, there are apps designed to help you steer clear of distractions by restricting access to them on your phone. For further guidance, consider delving into “The Focus Principles” by Arootah Founder & CEO Rich Bello, which can provide more in-depth insights.

2. Emotional Intelligence

Developing emotional intelligence — or the ability to perceive others’ emotions and regulate your own — is a crucial skill for leaders. A high level of emotional intelligence will make you more capable of relating to your teams. Leaders should excel at four key components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

If you need to work on self-awareness, try journaling or a similar reflective practice to help you identify and name your emotions. If you need to work on self-management, consider adopting activities that help alleviate negative emotions, such as meditation, exercise, or spending time outdoors. If you have a good handle on your emotions and want to work on your social awareness and relationship management, consider practicing active listening and learning more about the nuances of body language and conflict resolution.

3. Communication Skills

Good communication skills go hand in hand with emotional intelligence. If you’re unable to communicate with others appropriately, you may similarly have trouble conveying your emotions or responding to others’ emotions. This can greatly hinder your ability to build teams, resolve conflicts, or inspire teams to follow the team vision.

Work on your communication skills by practicing active listening and communicating clearly and concisely. Consider taking a professional development course related to communications, such as writing or public speaking courses. These leadership development opportunities will allow you to gain expert insights and feedback.

4. Decision–Making Skills

Possessing keen focus doesn’t always equate to adeptness in decision-making. If you find yourself hesitating when faced with choices, regardless of their magnitude, this indecision can impede your organization’s progress. Conversely, you might not hesitate but struggle with making optimal decisions, swaying too heavily towards either data or intuition. This can negatively affect both your decision-making process and your team’s performance.

To enhance your decision-making abilities, continuously learn through simulation exercises or analysis of real-world situations. Employ structured approaches and tools, such as decision or priority matrices, to guide your process. By refining your decision-making skills through these methods, you’ll be better equipped to handle the critical decisions that arise in your professional life.

5. Time Management

Effective time management is essential for reaching your goals. Implement strategies such as time blocking to sharpen your focus and expedite task completion, the Pomodoro technique to maintain concentration with brief intervals for mental rest, or the Eisenhower Matrix to discern the tasks that merit your attention.

6. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion—or the practice of crafting an organizational culture that welcomes and includes people of all diversities with equity—is more important than ever for attracting and retaining talent. In many organizations, a DEI team may be on staff; however, implementing that team’s initiatives often starts with leadership. The rest of the teams are unlikely to follow if leaders don’t openly embrace DEI initiatives.

This summer, consider brushing up on the importance of DEI through professional development seminars, workshops, and courses, or by reading a book on DEI’s role in the modern workplace.

7. Innovation and Creativity

Lastly, take some time to brainstorm, engage in creative hobbies, or learn a new skill. Engaging parts of your mind and self that don’t get as much attention throughout the busier parts of the year can help renew your mind so that you approach the fall with greater overall creativity.

The Bottom Line

While many see this summer as a time to relax and recharge, exceptional leaders recognize the summer months as a golden opportunity for upskilling. Imagine stepping into the fall refreshed and armed with enhanced skills that set you apart from your peers.

Whether you work on your innovation and creativity, emotional intelligence, DEI knowledge, time management, decision-making skills, communication, or focus, the summer is an excellent time. An Arootah executive coach can help. Get started today by signing up for a complimentary introductory coaching call.