How to build leadership skills

Leadership skills — the ability to guide, influence, and inspire others — can be built at any career stage, with or without a formal title. And research suggests women are particularly well-positioned to develop these skills. Decades of studies on transformational leadership consistently finds that women score higher than men on key leadership dimensions like mentoring, collaborative problem-solving, and motivating others toward a shared vision. This leadership style is strongly linked to better team performance and business outcomes.

For women, acting as a leader requires an extra layer of strategy: research consistently shows that women are held to a higher standard when demonstrating leadership, and that the same behaviors that earn men praise can earn women criticism. Understanding both the skills and the dynamics is what makes the difference. This guide walks you through the most effective steps to build your leadership presence and get recognized for it.

Step 1: Building a leadership presence and brand

Leadership presence isn't a personality trait — it's a set of signals you can learn to send consistently. Research shows executive presence accounts for 26% of what gets someone promoted, according to senior executives surveyed.

Your leadership brand is the answer to "what do people say about you when you're not in the room?" Get clear on two or three things you want to be known for — your expertise, your approach, or the problems you solve — and look for ways to demonstrate them consistently.

• Make your contributions visible by narrating your impact, sharing results with your manager, and volunteering to present your team's work. Good work alone rarely gets noticed. Research shows high-performing women often fall into what Lean In calls the "Cinderella myth" — the belief that if they keep their heads down and work hard, someone will notice and reward them.
• Sit at the table — literally and figuratively. Speak up in meetings, especially in rooms where decisions are being made. Studies show women are rated as more effective leaders than men in most competencies — but that advantage is invisible if you're not in the room or not speaking when you are
• Pursue a sponsor, not just a mentor. Mentors give advice; sponsors use their influence to advocate for you. Research shows employees with sponsors are promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without — yet women are consistently less likely than men to have one at every stage of the pipeline
• Build visibility outside your immediate team — contribute to cross-functional projects, present to senior leaders when you can, and develop a point of view on your industry. A personal brand that extends beyond your current role makes you easier to advocate for and harder to overlook

Step 2: Motivating and inspiring your team

Women are more likely than men to lead in the transformational style most strongly linked to team performance — multiple studies confirm this. If you're a woman, lean in to these skills.

• Build emotional intelligence, because this is the core of transformational leadership — the ability to build trust and inspire and motivate team members. Work on understanding and managing your emotions and responding thoughtfully to others
• Give significantly more positive feedback than critical feedback. The highest-performing employees receive nearly six positive comments for every critical one. And be specific when you praise, so people know what they got right
• Create psychological safety on your team — the shared belief that it's safe to speak up, take risks, and admit mistakes without fear of punishment. Research shows it's the single most important factor in team effectiveness
• Share power intentionally: involve your team in planning, empower them to make decisions, and give junior colleagues opportunities to step into the spotlight
• Leading in a transformational way is not the same as simply being nice — you'll sometimes need to give feedback that's hard to hear, or deprioritize a project that disappoints people. Do what serves your team best in the long term, not what feels most comfortable in the moment

[CTA] For scripts and tools to motivate and inspire your team, visit our community hub.

Step 3: Improving your communication skills

Women can be penalized for communication styles that are perfectly acceptable in men — the likeability penalty at work. Here's how to manage this bias while communicating effectively.

• Strong leadership communication means stating your point of view clearly and directly. Effective leaders don't over-hedge their opinions or over-qualify their ideas
• If assertiveness isn't welcomed, the research-backed response is not to soften your position, but to use "I-We" framing: pair your direct point with language that signals shared purpose

[CTA] For more scripts to help show leadership and navigate likeability bias, visit our community hub.

• Prepare thoroughly before high-stakes conversations: write out your key points, anticipate pushback, and rehearse your delivery out loud — research shows rehearsal is one of the strongest predictors of whether you get your point across
• Learn to read the room: notice how different audiences respond to your communication style and adjust your delivery without compromising your message
• Practice active listening: in meetings, focus on understanding before responding, and ask clarifying questions rather than jumping to solutions

[CTA] For more tools to build leadership presence, visit our community hub.

Step 4: Taking initiative

Taking initiative means identifying what needs to be done and doing it without being asked — it is one of the clearest signals of leadership potential at any level.

• Volunteer for projects that stretch you beyond your current role — leadership skills develop fastest through real, high-stakes experience. Research shows approximately 70% of leadership development happens through on-the-job experience
• Look for problems your team or organization hasn't solved yet and propose a solution; don't wait for permission to contribute
• Offer to lead a meeting, run a working group, or coordinate a cross-functional project before you're asked
• Mentor or support junior colleagues — teaching others deepens your own skills and demonstrates leadership capacity to people above

Step 5: Asking for feedback

Women are more likely than men to receive vague, personality-based feedback rather than concrete, skills-based input — and research shows women are systematically less likely to receive critiques tied to outcomes. Here's how to get feedback that's actually useful.

• Feedback is most instructive when you ask for it specifically — "What's one thing I could have done differently?" gets more actionable answers than "How did I do?"
• Seek feedback from multiple sources — your manager, peers, and collaborators across teams — to build a complete picture of how your leadership lands
• When you receive feedback, follow up visibly to show you've acted on it — this builds trust and signals that you take your own development seriously
• Keep a record of feedback received and steps taken in response — this is powerful evidence of growth in promotion conversations

[CTA] For more scripts to help you ask for and act on feedback, visit our community hub.

Step 6: Leading from a junior role

You don't need a title to lead — influencing others, driving ideas forward, and earning trust are skills you can practice and demonstrate at any level, and doing so early is one of the clearest signals of leadership potential.

• Build credibility first: people are more likely to be influenced by someone whose judgment they trust and whose track record they respect
• Frame your ideas in terms of shared goals — "this approach would help us hit our Q3 target" lands better than "I think we should do it this way"
• Women get better results when they tie assertive positions to communal goals — research shows connecting proposals to team outcomes significantly reduces the backlash women often face when advocating strongly for a position
• Invest in relationships across teams and levels — influence travels through trust, and trust is built over time through consistent, reliable engagement

Step 7: Navigating the likeability penalty

The likeability penalty — also called likeability bias — means that working women are judged on whether they conform to traditional gender expectations of warmth and agreeableness. It's a well-documented bias, not a personal failing.

As Lean In puts it: success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women — which means the same behavior that makes a man look like a leader can make a woman look difficult. A Pew Research survey found 64% of Americans say women are held to higher standards than men in the workplace.

When women are assertive and direct — behaviors that signal leadership potential in men — they are often perceived as less likeable or "too aggressive." When they are warm and communal, they may be seen as having less leadership skill. A study of 25,000+ performance reviews found women are 22% more likely than men to receive feedback on their personality rather than their work. Here's how to manage this bias.

• Use the "I-We" strategy. Women significantly reduce backlash when they combine assertive requests with communal framing — explaining both why a request is legitimate and that they care about organizational relationships and team outcomes
• Women who demonstrate their competence alongside advocating for themselves are consistently rated as more promotable — the likeability penalty for self-promotion largely disappears when it's paired with demonstrated results

[CTA] For more scripts to help show leadership and navigate likeability bias, visit our community hub.

• Build relationships with colleagues who will back you up in meetings and other group settings — this is one of the most practical protections against the likeability penalty
• If you're a woman of color in a white-majority context, you can face compounded forms of likeability bias — research shows. It helps to connect with other women who understand your specific experience. Consider joining a Lean In Circle, where you can build skills and mutual advocacy with people who share your context

[CTA] Visit our community hub to learn more about Circles.