How to Write Leadership Skills in Resume

Leadership is one of the most important skills that employers look for in interns. Regardless of the type of the internships you’re looking for or a company’s size, mentioning leadership skills in resume is a must. It’s an essential function of successful management that helps to maximize work efficiency and to achieve organizational goals.

Knowing which leadership skills employers look for in a candidate is important. And understanding how to convincingly bring these qualities to a prospective employer’s attention is an important part of tackling the resume skills section.

First of all, what are leadership skills?

Leadership skills are abilities that help you guide your team to meeting individual, group, department, and organizational goals.

Some examples of leadership skills in action include:

• Communicating goals so everyone understands them and their role in achieving them
• Positioning team members to make optimal use of their talents
• Promoting productivity and quality standards
• Motivating and inspiring everyone to do their best work
• Keeping team members on task, on schedule, and on budget

You may have and gain leadership skills through experiences in college or outside college, but how to write leadership skills in resume and convince employers you possess it?

Provide Examples

The most important thing you can do when showing off leadership skills in resume is to provide specific examples. It’s common for applicants to state they have great leadership skills without providing evidence. To stand out, mention some leadership-related accomplishments from a previous job.

Here are a few examples:

• Coached my team and to adopt a new business strategy (mention details about the strategy)
• Successfully organized seminars, meetings, team-building activities, and collaborations with other companies

Use Leadership Skills Mentioned in the Job Description

It’s common to find applicants who use the same resume when applying for an internship. Generic resumes don’t portray your skills as successfully as you’d like. They fail to show what makes you the best candidate. Instead of sending the same resume to every employer, optimize it to fit the specific responsibilities.

Companies provide detailed job descriptions. Read that description thoroughly and modify the resume in order to meet the criteria. Why is this important? Leadership isn’t just about the way you act or things you write, it’s also about the way you organize your writing. Generic resumes and those that don’t match criteria are a sign of poor organizational skills, which are important for good leadership.

Include Words Associated with Leadership

Vocabulary is your best friend. Your choice of words can help depict leadership skills in resume. Take some time when writing your resume, explore the vocabulary, and don’t be afraid to use action verbs.

Here are examples of words that are associated with leadership: campaign, manage, engage, mobilize, mentor, empower, delegate, enable, lead, assemble, enlist, instill, stimulate, elect, guide, coach. Use words like these to emphasize your ability to lead.

Highlight Communication Skills

The difference between good and bad leaders at the workplace is their ability to use and encourage communication within the department or company. After all, if you can’t communicate properly with both inferiors and superiors, you will not be able to achieve organizational goals. When writing a resume, demonstrate the ability to speak and listen.