Careers That Require Leadership Skills

Leaders are great in some careers and can find others challenging. Some people are natural-born leaders; they thrive when leading a team and struggle when a poor leader is leading them. If this sounds like you, you've probably got great leadership skills. Another indicator is if your friends or team members always place you in charge and trust your ability to lead the group. In this article, we take a look at the careers of people with great leadership skills.

Lawyer

Lawyers work to uphold the law in many different areas. Most focus on one or two related areas of the law, such as divorce law and family law, commercial law or criminal law. They are committed to getting the best result for their clients and work as a leader to help them with their current issues. Leadership is essential in this job role as lawyers often need to try and persuade others of their opinion and interpretation of the evidence. In addition, the most successful lawyers are trustworthy with excellent communication skills. Clients will only pay for lawyers they see leading them to success.

Project manager

If you choose a career in project management, you need good leadership skills to successfully take complex projects from start to finish, on time and within budget. A project manager brings teams together to ensure a project is completed on time with good results. This requires great leadership skills to motivate employees to work hard and meet deadlines. They also need to keep everyone on the same page and see the bigger picture and minor setbacks. In addition, project managers need to be adaptable, a key trait of any good leader.

Pilot

Pilots are in charge of flying aircraft, from helicopters to large commercial aircraft. A key part of a pilot's role is being able to make decisions. All good leaders can make decisions based on the information they have to achieve the best possible outcome. In the case of a pilot, the decisions they make help to save the lives of the passengers onboard the aircraft. Being calm, decisive and not panicking in a crisis is essential for any pilot. Pilots will often have a co-pilot and crew they need to lead; it’s their responsibility to take charge in difficult situations to ensure aircraft safety.

Management consultant

The role of a management consultant is to advise businesses and develop strategies to help them succeed. To become a management consultant, you need experience in a business environment; this may mean starting in a manager role. Some companies will offer leadership training that can help you to hone your leadership skills and branch out into a management consultant role once you have enough experience. To get senior leaders at a business to listen and follow their recommendations, management consultants need to be persuasive and good leaders. The most successful management consultants take their time to review all of the necessary information before presenting a concrete case to their clients. This role also requires negotiation skills, which is part of being a great leader.

School principal

A school principal is in charge of many different faculty members and is also responsible for the well-being of the students at that school. To be a great principal, you need good leadership skills; without this, other teachers won’t be motivated to work hard to follow your strategy. This can result in poor performance; a successful school has a team of well-motivated teachers. In addition, principals need to be able to delegate responsibilities to other heads of departments and teams. If they are inadequate at leading and don’t delegate correctly, the school may miss out on potential opportunities, and the principal will soon become overworked. Most principals start off as teachers, leading the class of students to success.