Have you ever wondered how possessing good leadership skills and qualities can distinguish you from other writers? So, here’s a breakdown: your writing skills form the bedrock of your career, but that’s not enough.
Other skills must be present to complement your foundational writing skills. When you have them, the sky stops being your limit.
Your favorite writers have these excellent leadership skills, and it takes nothing to possess them. You must join the League of Writers with the following good leadership skills and qualities to excel in writing.
What are the good leadership skills and qualities I need as a writer?
- Resilience
- Empathy
- Passion
- Patience
- Integrity
- Focus
- Respect
- Accountability
- Self-awareness
- Problem-solving
- Trust
- Communication
- Innovation
- Transparency
Let’s look at each more closely for a better understanding.
Resilience
Resilience is the ability to snap back after a time of stretch. It means being able to quickly rise above whatever negative thing that comes to draw you back.
Resilience should be one of your qualities as a new writer while looking for opportunities. With this quality, you can overcome whatever negative experience you encounter.Â
The negativity may be an unnecessary and untrue criticism of your written work. It may come as rejection from your application or a lack of encouragement for the back-breaking work you did.
Resilience will help you never stay down or defeated or even abandon writing.
Empathy
Ever put yourself in your client’s shoes to understand their content need? You felt for them and went a bit extra to help put a smile on their face by writing great content for them? That’s empathy.
Good leaders are empathetic, and so are great writers. Empathy helps you write to satisfy and help your clients.
It also helps you connect with your readers by writing to answer their questions with your content.
Meanwhile, book or novel writers can show empathy with the characters they create. This quality helps you reach far and touch your readers’ emotions in a good way.
Passion
 Someone passionate about a good cause can make a great leader. Likewise, someone passionate about writing. They end up making a great writer.
Being passionate breeds diligence, and diligence breeds mastery. One who is passionate has understood the assignment behind the job, which in turn makes them seek more ways to become better and master the skill.
Patience
Your writing skills will bring you around different calibers of people. They may be clients, admirers, publishers, editors, fans, etc.Â
You will encounter various attitudes, behaviors, and characters among these people. Patience helps you relate with everyone without experiencing rifts and fallouts. It will also help you to manage such situations.
Integrity
Intergrity truly tops the chart for good leadership skills and qualities fit for a writer. It means staying honest and upholding strong moral principles in words and actions.
As a freelance writer, integrity stops you from doing subpar jobs for your clients. Should there be no Copyscape or plagiarism checkers, your job will still meet standards and meet your client’s content needs.
You will never write to mislead your readers for any reason.
Focus
Great writers are laser-focused on the goal and have remained so. The goal post does not shift to mediocrity or lacks depth.
Instead, every outstanding writer remains focused on delivering quality content in any form they serve them. If you become a writer who informs, tells stories, advertises, etc., stay focused and deliver accurately.
Respect
Yes, we always say respect is reciprocal, yet some people have forgotten how to show or reciprocate this quality. To excel as a writer, you must imbibe this quality.
Respecting your readers, clients, colleagues, or employees takes nothing away from you. Maybe you should know this: your attitude seeps into your content, and you sure do not want to sound disrespectful to your esteemed readers.
Accountability
The art of taking responsibility for your project is what makes you accountable. That article you needed to write or that book you started but could not finish because you are full of excuses shows your level of accountability.
You can grow this quality by joining some writer’s accountability group or getting an accountability partner.
Self-awareness
It is essential to be self-aware in your writing journey. As you transition into a great writer or already one, you should be able to control your emotions while writing on any topic or niche.
More so, being self-aware helps you know yourself well enough. When you do, you can identify where you need help as a writer to improve your skills and not be harsh on yourself.
You also understand where your writing strength lies and add a more beautiful touch to your writing style.
Problem-solving
Learning this quality as a writer will take you farther in your career. For example, problem-solving skills in writing make you look at content differently.
First, you identify the pain points by thinking about the topic. Then, find the problems and address them in your writing as much as you can.
Trust
Trust is one quality that takes time to build. However, when you finally build it, you will enjoy its gains.
So, building trust as a writer begins with staying consistent in writing, sharing only accurate and up-to-date information and helpful content.
Trust grows when your readers see how consistently helpful and informative you are.
Communication
Great leaders and writers wield the power of communication effortlessly to their benefit.
Here’s how to grow the quality of written communication. Write in an active voice. Let your content be clear and concise. Write in a tone and language your readers understand. Simplify your writing and explain better. Let your content flow smoothly for your readers.
Innovation
A good writer should have the ability to be innovative. That is, be able to think up new ideas to improve your writing styles and skills.
Learn to develop ideas that will help you get better at your writing. Doing that will help you to serve your audience and clients better.
Transparency
When you become transparent in your writing, you leave no stone unturned in each topic.
Let the details be clearly defined and broken down. Be open with the truth and clarify confusing concepts.
How to build these good leadership skills and qualities as a writer
- Be consistent
- Show enthusiasm                 Â
- Be kind to yourself
- Track your journey to success
Be consistent
Practice the whole time. Show consistency toward learning the qualities you seek for. A new quality takes time and effort to become a part of your daily habit.
Show enthusiasm
Go through the process with so much eagerness and personal motivation. Show interest that you are all out to get those qualities.
Be kind to yourself
Some of these good leadership skills and qualities may require time and patience to learn. In the process of learning them, don’t rush yourself.Â
Be kind instead of being harsh or brutal on yourself for failing to learn quickly. Also, constantly affirm and encourage yourself.
Keep track of your progress
When you fail to track your progress, you might miss the tiny milestones you make. It is often not about the big breakthrough but the tiny ones that accumulate to birth the big ones.Â
Encouragement comes from those little bright rays of progress. Enjoy the learning process and come out with the best version of you.
Conclusion
Combining your writing skills with many good leadership skills and qualities is a sure way to command authority in your niche. Good thing is, these skills are free to learn.
This is helpful and insightful.
Yes, it is. Thank you Miracle.