Identify the Leadership Skill You Need to Develop
A practical framework for choosing where to focus
In Path to Becoming a Better Leader, we introduced Lead Forward HQ’s Learn → Practice → Apply → Reflect approach to leadership development. The process starts by identifying a real leadership challenge you are facing and then determining the capability that would help you address it.
But that raises an important question: How do you actually figure out which leadership capability you need to develop?
It isn’t always obvious. If you’re struggling with time management, for example, you could work on prioritization, delegation, coaching, operating cadence, or any number of related capabilities. Picking one from a list isn’t particularly helpful. Instead, use the leadership challenge as a starting point and work through these steps to determine where to focus your development.
Step 1: Define the Leadership Challenge
Start by writing down the leadership challenge you want to improve. Be specific. Instead of: “I need to get better at time management”, describe what is actually happening: “I’m spending so much time answering questions and solving problems for my team that I don’t have enough time for my own priorities.”
Or instead of: “I need to be a better communicator.” Try: “I leave meetings thinking we’ve aligned on a decision, but people frequently walk away with different interpretations of what we decided and what happens next.”
The more clearly you can describe what is happening, the easier it becomes to diagnose what might need to change.
A few questions can help:
What keeps happening that I wish were different?
Where am I spending more time or energy than I should?
What conversations or situations do I consistently find difficult?
What feedback have I heard more than once?
What part of my role feels harder now than it did at my previous level or scope?
Write down one challenge, in one or two sentences.
Step 2: Ask “Why Is This Happening?”
Now resist the urge to immediately choose a leadership skill. Instead, ask: Why is this happening?
Take our time-management example: “I’m spending so much time answering questions and solving problems for my team that I don’t have enough time for my own priorities.”
Why?
Maybe you haven’t clearly defined which decisions your team can make without you.
Maybe you delegate tasks but not ownership.
Maybe your team is capable of solving the problems, but you’ve developed a habit of giving them the answer because it’s faster in the moment.
Maybe priorities change frequently, so people genuinely need your help determining what matters.
Those are four different causes of the same leadership challenge.
If you’re not sure why something is happening, keep asking questions. What happens immediately before the problem? When does it happen most often? Are there situations where it doesn’t happen? What are you doing (or not doing) that may be contributing to the pattern?
This is also a good place to ask someone else what they see. A manager, peer, direct report, or coach may recognize something that is difficult to see from your perspective.
Step 3: Identify the Capabilities That Could Address the Cause
Once you have a better hypothesis about what is driving the challenge, ask: What would I need to become better at to change this?
Generate a few possibilities. For our time-management example, if the underlying issue is…
I haven’t clarified what my team can decide without me, then you could work on delegation or decision rights.
I assign work but continue to stay heavily involved, then you could work on delegation or ownership.
My team isn’t clear on what matters most, then you could work on prioritization or operating cadence.
I don’t trust the quality of decisions made without me, then you could work on developing others or building trust.
You aren’t looking for every leadership capability that could possibly help. You’re trying to connect the cause you’ve identified to a behavior you could actually change.
Step 4: Choose the Capability With the Greatest Leverage
Now narrow your list by asking yourself: If I became meaningfully better at just one of these capabilities, which would have the greatest impact on the challenge I’m trying to solve?
Consider three things:
Impact: Would improving this capability materially change the problem?
Control: Is this something I can actually change through my own leadership behavior?
Opportunity: Will I have enough opportunities in my day-to-day work to practice and apply it?
Suppose you determine that your tendency to solve problems for your team is the biggest contributor to your time-management challenge.
Your development priority isn’t time management. It’s coaching.
That’s a much more actionable development goal.
Step 5: Define What You Will Do Differently and Validate
Before you start learning about the capability, translate it into a behavior you can observe.
“Get better at coaching” is still too broad. Instead: When a direct report brings me a problem, I will ask questions to understand their thinking and help them develop a recommendation before I offer my solution.
Now you know what you’re trying to change. That makes the rest of your development much easier because you can find resources that teach the behavior, practice it, intentionally apply it, and reflect on whether it is working.
Finally, don’t assume your diagnosis is perfect. Share it with someone who knows your leadership well: “I’m trying to create more time for strategic work. I think one reason I’m struggling is that I solve too many problems for my team, so I’m going to focus on becoming a better coach. Does that match what you see?” An outside perspective can help you test your diagnosis before you invest too much time developing the wrong thing.
Now You Have Something You Can Develop
At the beginning of this process, your development goal might have been: “Get better at time management.” After working through it, you have something much more specific:
Challenge: Too much of my time is spent solving my team’s problems.
Likely cause: I tend to give answers rather than helping my team develop their own solutions.
Capability: Coaching.
Behavior: Ask questions and help the person develop a recommendation before offering my solution.
That is a development goal you can actually do something with. From there, move it through the Learn → Practice → Apply → Reflect cycle. Learn what effective coaching looks like. Practice the behavior. Apply it in your real conversations. Reflect on what changed, get feedback, and adjust.
And if you’re struggling to identify the challenge, understand what’s really driving it, or determine where to focus, you don’t have to diagnose it alone. A manager, trusted peer, or coach can help you work through the process and identify where a change in your leadership could make the greatest difference.