Leadership Skills: List of Examples (Also for a Resume)

Here’s the best leadership skills list this side of Melinda Gates. Why will it change your world? Because it doesn’t just show the best 150 leadership qualities. It shows how to use them.

Think about it: getting hired is more than saying I’ve got leadership skills on a resume. So, pick the ones that make the hiring manager sit straighter. Then, prove you’ve got them cold.

This guide will show you:

• A great qualities of a leader resume list.
• How to describe leadership skills on a resume to get hired.
• Why and how to prove leadership qualities and skills in your resume.
• How to develop leadership skills so employers see your worth.

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Want to learn more about other job-winning skills? Follow up with our dedicated guides:

• Critical Thinking Skills in the Workplace & Everyday Life
• Creative Thinking Skills that Will Boost Your Career
• Writing Skills for Your Resume and Everyday Job
• Analytical Skills that Employers Value
• Administrative Skills

But first, let’s answer the question: what are leadership skills?

Leadership skills are key executive abilities. They let managers guide teams to meet organizational goals. Skills of a leader include interpersonal skills, communication, planning, and persuasion.

1

Review the Best Leadership Skills for Your Resume

The short version:

There are dozens of types of leadership skills.

See the top 21 skills of a leader below.

Each has several lesser leadership qualities for a total of 150.

Which leader skills should you show in your resume? What makes a good leader?

Scroll the leadership skills resume phrases list below to find out:

Top 20 Effective Leadership Skills

• People Management. Recruiting, hiring, training, mentoring, coaching, onboarding, disciplining, getting buy-in, team building.
• Management. Business knowledge, office management, finance, vendor management, policy deployment, delegating, planning, strategic thinking.
• Collaboration Leadership Skills. Analyzing problems, brainstorming solutions, compromising, defining roles, facilitating discussion, employee engagement.
• Decision Making. Prioritizing tasks, research, ethical decision making, team decision making, problem analysis, consensus-building.
• Time Management. Goal setting, self-awareness, prioritization, focus, self-motivation, outsourcing, stress management.
• Persuasion. Sales, speaking, listening, empathy, emotional intelligence, empowerment.
• Psychological Leadership Skills. Judging character, negotiation, flexibility, motivation, persistence, morale-building.
• Problem Solving. Perceptiveness, data gathering, fact finding, problem analysis, brainstorming, research, test development, testing, evaluation.
• Ethical Leadership Skills. Accountability, professionalism, honesty, judgement.
• Communication. Active listening, speaking, receiving feedback, storytelling, facilitating conversations, giving presentations, PowerPoint.
• Interpersonal Skills. Charisma, relationship building, listening, empathy, conflict management.
• Motivating Employees. Providing rewards, giving recognition, giving feedback, receiving feedback, evaluating performance, setting expectations.
• Positive Attitude. Empathy, compassion, diplomacy, good naturedness, self confidence.
• Creative Thinking Skills. Lateral thinking, brainstorming, listening to ideas, open-mindedness.
• Project Management. Lean thinking, strategic planning, scheduling, Scrum.
• Computer Skills. MS Office, email, writing, enterprise systems, spreadsheets.
• Supporting Employees. Listening, keeping promises, compassion, logistics.
• Lean Thinking. Value stream mapping, kanban, pokayoke, policy deployment, 5S, Six Sigma, inventory reduction, setup reduction.
• Agile/Scrum. Meeting facilitation, Agile planning, enforcing rules, shielding the team, servant leadership, removing impediments.
• Team Leadership Skills. Communication, organization, supervision, respect, influence, honesty, team support, logistics, delegation, giving recognition.

Want effective leadership skills examples for your resume? That’s next.

Pro Tip: Don’t cram too many leadership qualities into your resume. Focus on the ones this job really needs. A laundry-list of qualities of a leader smells like fear and doubt.

Need a bigger list of skills and qualities for your resume? See our guide: 99 Key Skills for a Resume + Examples

Want to zero in on job-specific skills? Visit: Hard Skills for Any Job (Best List of Samples)

“Okay, but how?”

How do you show leadership skills on a resume?

Of course use the requisite skills list, like this:

Skills: Interpersonal skills, collaboration, PowerPoint, communication, budgeting.

But don’t stop there.

Prove your leadership qualities or no one will believe them.

There’s a simple formula.

Load your resume bullet points with evidence.

List the right skills, and how they helped your employer.

Also—

Focus on the skills in the job posting.

These leadership skills examples show how:

Leadership Skills Examples for Resumes

You’ve got leadership qualities. You want to flaunt them on your resume.

And you should.

But what resume leadership skills does this employer want? Training? Coaching? Persuasion? Winning employee engagement for key programs?

Pick those listed in the job ad and prove your leadership skills resume phrases with quantifiable achievements.

As good as hired.

Each bullet has leadership traits or skills the job wants.

Plus—each one helped your company and has numbers as proof.

Resume Leadership Skills in Nursing Examples

Your nursing skills are up there with Ann O’Brien’s. But if you don’t prove it on your resume, the hiring manager won’t know.

So read the job ad. Does it want team building most? Tech skills? Communication? Training skills? Integrity? Match your resume leadership qualities to those.

Resume Leadership Communication Skills Examples

Does the job posting want leadership communication skills? Then prove them. But which ones?

Does it need active listening? Speaking? Business storytelling? Or does it just want general written and spoken communication skills?

Leadership Skills for Managers Examples for Resumes

Does your dream job require leadership skills for managers? Of course it does. And you know you need to prove you’ve got them.

But—does that mean people management or operations management? Process management or project management? What about hiring, training, or delegating?

Read the job ad carefully, then build your bullet points like this:

Interpersonal Leadership Skills Examples for Resumes

Leadership soft skills are key in manager jobs. Do you have skills and qualities like charisma, active listening, and conflict management?

Those are great, but make it easy on by sifting through the job interview. Find the interpersonal skills it wants. Then build bullet points like this:

When possible, use exact resume keywords from the job posting. In this case, we swapped “charisma” with “popular” because it made more sense.

Team Leader Skills Examples for Resumes

Team leadership skills impact a tight-knit group. They’re different from organizational leadership qualities that cover multiple teams.

What team leader skills does this job need? Support? Communication? Supervision? Prove them on your resume like this:

Technical Leadership Skills Examples for Resumes

Technical leadership skills are the opposite of leadership soft skills. They’re things like training, finance, data gathering, and Six Sigma.

When should you show them on your resume? When the job ad asks for them, or when they’re central to the job itself.

Need to prove you’ve got the qualities of a leader? That’s next.

Pro Tip: Don’t lie. Making up achievements may get you to the interview. But—they’ll spot your lack of leadership qualities the second you sit down.

Which leadership soft skills should you list? What about technical leadership skills? See our guide: Soft Skills vs Hard Skills for a Job: What Employers Look For

When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.

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When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.

What are leadership skills vs leadership qualities?

We could argue that for hours.

The point?

You need both to prove the characteristics of a leader.

And—

You can prove both with achievements.

Here’s a list of key leadership traits:

Leadership Qualities

• Integrity
• Honesty
• Ethics
• Empathy
• Confidence
• Passion
• Commitment
• Vision
• Supportiveness
• Accountability
• Decisiveness
• Creativity
• Empowerment
• Trustworthiness

Prove leadership qualities just like the examples above.

Pro Tip: What are the most important leadership skills and qualities for your resume? They’re usually at the top of the job posting. Employers put “nice extras” lower down.

Computer skills and knowledge are central leadership traits. See our guide: Computer Skills: Best Resume Computer Skills Employers Want

Yikes.

What if you know how to list leadership qualities and skills on a resume, but—

You don’t have them yet?

Don’t panic.

Leadership is a skill that can be learned.

How to Improve Leadership Skills

Improving leadership skills means having empathy.

Work to understand direct reports. Get to know their needs and problems. Then strive to make their work-lives easier.

Need concrete advice and ways to improve your leadership skills?

See this list of training courses:

Leadership Skills Courses

General Leadership Skills Courses

• Dale Carnegie
• Harvard Business School
• Coursera
• American Management Association
• Alison
• Pryor
• Open University
• Lynda

Technical Leadership Skills Courses

• Organizational Leadership. MIT, Coursera
• People Management. Open University, Coursera
• Operations Management. Open University, Alison
• Office Management. Study.com, Alison
• Decision Making. Open University, Coursera
• Time Management. Lynda, Skillshare
• Interpersonal Skills. Udemy, Lynda
• Coaching. Coursera, Universal Class
• Communication. Open University, Coursera,
• Project Management. PMI, University of Phoenix
• Agile. Coursera, PMI
• Computer Skills. Alison, Lynda
• Lean Thinking. Lean.org, GBMP
• Nursing. NursingWorld
• Negotiation. Coursera, Harvard Business School

Pro Tip: Want free leadership skills courses? There are some great YouTube videos and TED talks out there. Lynda.com will give you a free first month, too.

Need more technical leadership skills? See our guide: Technical Skills List: Examples for Resumes Employers Want.

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Here’s a recap. How to describe leadership skills on a resume:

1. Review the different types of leadership skills.
2. Read the job ad. Learn the leadership qualities and skills that matter to this job.
3. Prove your leadership traits and skills with achievements from past jobs.
4. Add numbers to your leadership skills resume phrases to show you’ve got the characteristics of a leader. Use dollar figures, percents, hours saved, and numbers of people trained.

Are you still fuzzy on the qualities of a leader? Not sure how to prove leadership skills on a resume? Give us a shout in the comments! We’d be happy to reply.