Leaders set standards, lead by example, and drive an organisation forward. There’s a popular saying that great leaders are born, not made. It isn’t accurate. Good leaders have a particular set of skills, and while those skills come more naturally to some, anyone can learn them with practice.
Practice data shows where managers need it most. Across 10,005 manager-conversation practice sessions on VirtualSpeech this year, people scored best at setting up a conversation and staying calm. They scored worst at handling pushback, helping someone find their own options, and agreeing on what happens next.
This guide is for L&D teams and managers. It covers what makes a good leader, the eight skills managers need most, what our data shows about where they struggle, and how to build those skills, including what to cover first with new managers.
What makes a good leader?
The best leaders can:
- Create an inspiring vision of the future
- Motivate people to engage with that vision
- Manage the delivery of the vision
- Coach and build a team that works together to achieve it
Each of these depends on soft skills that can be developed over time.
Leadership vs management
Leadership skills are creative, big-picture and people-focused: communicating a vision, motivating and inspiring a team, and innovating. Management skills are operational: organising resources and executing day-to-day tasks. Managers need both, and most of their leadership happens in everyday conversations: one-to-ones, feedback, coaching and difficult news.
Why leadership skills matter
Leadership skills matter at every level. Senior leaders need them to set direction and communicate the big picture. Middle managers need them to get the best from their teams. Junior employees who develop them progress faster and contribute more. For L&D teams, that makes leadership development a core pillar of any training strategy, and the most reliable way to build the next generation of leaders in-house.
8 leadership skills every manager needs
1. Clear communication
A manager can be innovative and technically gifted, but if they can’t explain their ideas, they won’t get far. Clear communication means getting to the point, using unambiguous language, and choosing the right tone, body language and channel for the message.
2. Listening and asking questions
Great communication is two-way. Leaders who listen and ask open questions understand problems faster and earn more trust. This is a common blind spot: a manager can be charismatic and a strong speaker yet forget to make conversations a dialogue.
3. Emotional intelligence
The best leaders understand how their actions affect others, from the most senior colleague to the newest starter. Emotional intelligence lets them show empathy, defuse conflict and handle change with tact.
4. Giving feedback
Managers need to give feedback that is specific, fair and focused on what happens next. Models such as SBI (Situation, Behaviour, Impact) help. See our guide to constructive feedback.
5. Coaching
Coaching helps people find their own solutions rather than being told what to do, which builds capability and ownership. The GROW model is the most widely used structure.
6. Handling difficult conversations
Poor performance, missed promotions, redundancies and conflict all need handling calmly and directly. See how to have difficult conversations.
7. Creativity and problem-solving
Leaders need to innovate rather than follow the market, and to solve problems, often by taking an unconventional approach. Creating a vision or strategy is itself a creative process.
8. Leading remote and hybrid teams
Remote teams need the same skills, applied more deliberately:
- Stay in regular contact, with scheduled one-to-ones, not just task updates.
- Set clear expectations and goals, in writing, so nobody has to guess.
- Choose the right channel: video for sensitive conversations, chat for quick questions, email for decisions that need a record.
- Build trust and encourage open dialogue, making it easy to raise problems early.
- Be accessible, and make sure people have the tools and resources they need.
What 10,000 practice conversations show
Managers are good at starting conversations and keeping them calm. They struggle to move them forward. Across 10,005 practice sessions in 17 manager scenarios this year, setting the goal of a coaching conversation scored highest (6.7 out of 10). Handling pushback (5.2) and helping someone find their own options (5.6) scored lowest.
Three patterns stand out for anyone designing manager training:
- The two-way skills are weakest. Asking questions (6.0) and agreeing next steps (6.0) both scored below delivering a clear message (6.2) and staying calm (6.4). Managers say the right things but involve the other person less.
- Coaching drops off after the first step. Managers set a coaching goal well (6.7), then fall a full point on helping the person find options (5.6). The urge to give the answer takes over.
- Pushback is the hardest moment. When an employee challenged the decision, as in the promotion conversation, scores fell to 5.2. Only 17% of sessions scored 8 or above on it.
It’s also a reminder that experience isn’t the same as skill. Employees practising these scenarios scored lower, on average, than students working through the same conversations as part of a course.
How to develop leadership skills in managers
Build a training plan
One-off workshops don’t stick. Map out what outcomes you want, how you’ll get there, and how you’ll measure it. Build a timeline, target specific skills in each module, and decide early which measures you’ll track: completion, practice scores, and changes in team results.
Teach, then practise straight away
Knowing a model isn’t the same as using it in a tense conversation. In our data, university students, who usually practise right after a class on the model, scored about a point higher than employees practising the same scenarios. We can’t prove that’s the reason, but it supports a simple design rule: pair every short lesson with a realistic practice conversation in the same week.
Tailor training to each manager
Managers have different strengths. One listens well but struggles with large groups; another is a confident speaker who forgets to make conversations two-way. Skill-level scores show who needs what, so you can target training rather than send everyone through the same course.
Make it flexible, and build in retries
Managers are short on time, so bite-sized practice of 5 to 10 minutes works better than blocking out half a day. Build in a second attempt: in our difficult-conversation data, two-thirds of people improved on their second try, and those who scored below 5 gained 2.2 points. Most people won’t retry unless the programme asks them to.
New manager training: what to cover first
New managers face difficult conversations within weeks of stepping up, often with former peers. Start with the conversations they’ll have soonest and the skills our data shows are weakest. A six-week programme might look like this:
| Week | Focus | Practice conversation | Skill to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One-to-ones and listening | A first one-to-one with a team member | Asking open questions |
| 2 | Giving feedback | Feedback on a collaboration issue, using SBI | Asking permission; describing the impact |
| 3 | Performance conversations | Addressing poor performance | Agreeing joint solutions |
| 4 | Coaching | An open-ended GROW coaching conversation | Helping them find options |
| 5 | Delivering bad news | Telling someone they didn’t get a promotion | Handling pushback |
| 6 | Bringing it together | A repeat of the hardest scenario so far | Improvement since the first attempt |
End with a short results report for each cohort, showing completion and skill scores before and after. It gives L&D teams evidence of impact, and gives managers a clear picture of their own progress.
Frequently asked questions
What are the most important leadership skills for managers?
Clear communication, listening and asking questions, emotional intelligence, giving feedback, coaching, handling difficult conversations, problem-solving and, increasingly, leading remote teams.
Which leadership skills do managers struggle with most?
In our 2026 practice data, handling pushback (5.2 out of 10), helping someone find options and a way forward when coaching (5.6), and agreeing next steps (6.0) scored lowest. Setting up a coaching conversation (6.7) and staying calm (6.4) scored highest.
What should new manager training include?
One-to-ones, giving feedback, performance conversations, coaching and delivering bad news, with practice of each, not just theory.
Can leadership skills be learned?
Yes. In our data, people who repeated a difficult manager conversation improved on their second attempt two-thirds of the time.
What’s the difference between leadership and management skills?
Leadership skills are about vision, motivation and people. Management skills are about organising and executing work. Good managers need both.
How we did this analysis
We analysed 10,005 completed roleplays from 1 January to 13 October 2026, across 17 VirtualSpeech library scenarios covering difficult conversations, feedback, coaching and mentoring.
- Who: 2,069 accounts at 244 organisations: university students (5,809 sessions), individual learners (2,615) and employees at companies and public bodies (1,581).
- Scoring: AI scored each session from 0 to 10 overall and on five skills specific to the scenario. We grouped the scenario-specific skills into 12 broader leadership skills. Sessions in other languages were matched to the same skills.
- Comparing students and employees: we used only individual accounts and compared scores on the same scenarios.
- Excluded: anonymous free-trial sessions, internal and test accounts, and sessions with no valid score.
- Limits: scores come from AI, not human assessors. We are running a study comparing our AI scores with certified coaches. Some skills, such as handling pushback, are scored in only a few scenarios.
All data was anonymised and aggregated.
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