Within the first three years of my career, I received five job offers for management and leadership roles.
I also dissected resumes for first-time managers, people looking to get a promotion, those stepping into a new leadership role with little to no leadership experience.
And over that time, I’ve developed quite a knack for understanding what works in a leadership resume, and what doesn’t.
What I’ve discovered is that you don’t necessarily need traditional leadership experience to land a role in leadership or management. Many employers look for evidence of leadership behaviors, even if you’ve never had headcount responsibility.
So this year, if one of your New Year’s goals is to land a promotion, move up the ladder within your organization or in your career by the end of 2026, this article will show you how.
By the end of this article, you’ll discover:
- What skills you need to include on your resume for a leadership promotion.
- What employers look for when assessing resumes for management roles.
- And how to reframe your experience, even if you’ve never actually managed a team.
What Are Leadership Skills?
But first, what are leadership skills anyway?
When we think about leadership, we think about managing people, projects and outcomes, having the final say in decision-making, or having significant ownership of decision-making.
But when you strip all those actions aside, it really comes down to behaviours and competencies that enable you to perform those actions extremely well.
And that means that even if you’ve never worked under the formal title of manager, you still have a chance to demonstrate these very leadership qualities within the context of your role and embody them on your resume.
When you take a look at the top skills needed in the future of work, for example in the World Economic Forum’s future of jobs report, you’ll notice that many of them are actually leadership skills:
- Leadership and social influence
- Communication skills
- Analytical thinking
- Creative thinking
- Employers also look for ownership skills, signs that someone takes responsibility for their work and for its outcome.
- Another high indicator of a potential leader is emotional intelligence and a growth mindset, especially in the age of AI. Human-first leaders who are able to regulate and control their emotions, actively listen, remain curious, promote a healthy work culture and constantly expand their learning are needed in 2026.
7 Leadership Skills To Put On Your Resume
A 2022 Pearson study noted that job ads are dominated by power skills including leadership skills, making this highly desirable (even if you’re not pursuing a management role right now):
So, do you have what it takes?
Skill 1: Stakeholder Communication
One of the core parts of a leadership role is is communicating with peers, team members, senior leadership, and external partners and clients, and sometimes even industry and government regulators and legal professionals.
This requires you to be able to adapt your communication style to people with different interests and priorities and at different levels, both within management and non-management, and translate complex jargon and technical terminology.
For example, talking to senior leaders would be different to talking to your clients or your team, because your communication style for senior leaders would be more focused on high-level overviews.
Resume bullet point example:
- Presented quarterly updates to senior leadership on project progress
Skill 2: Stakeholder Management
Any project manager will tell you that one of the most annoying aspects of your day-to-day role is managing stakeholders.
Stakeholders have different viewpoints, come from different backgrounds and hierarchy levels, and as a result, often have conflicting priorities. It’s your responsibility to manage their expectations, negotiate effectively, and know how to leverage your influence to obtain consensus that best meets shared values and outcomes for the best interest of all users involved.
For example, I remember that when I interviewed for a non-management role, I was asked if I had any experience managing stakeholders. That question did not throw me because I was able to pull from my self-employment experience, where I had to manage stakeholder expectations and coordinate a project that I was delivering (a workshop at a college).
Resume bullet point example:
- Acted as point of contact between finance, operations, and marketing units to deliver project outcomes (include example of shared outcome)
Skill 3: Presentation, Reporting, & Executive Writing Skills
Producing written content as an individual contributor requires a good understanding of your audience. But when you ascend into leadership and management positions, you’re expected to not only have a good understanding of your audience, but to translate concepts for different audiences in a way that will directly support decision making.
You need structured communication, decision-oriented reporting, and you need to be able to produce high-level risks, insights, analysis, and recommendations.
Resume bullet point example:
- Prepared and delivered three reports each month for the executive team summarising risks, insights, and recommendations
Skill 4: Coaching, Mentoring, & Knowledge-Sharing
If you’re moving into a role that requires you to have direct reports, you can demonstrate your competence in this area, in managing performance, through:
- Your experience as a peer-to-peer mentor
- Supporting new hires, advising, providing guidance throughout onboarding
- Providing your peers with feedback, guidance, and best practices from your own experience as an individual contributor.
Resume bullet point example:
- Mentored junior team members from onboarding through to the end of their first year, resulting in 35% improved quality of work compared to standard hires
Skill 5: Creative Thinking & Problem-Solving
This is the number one essential skill for the future of work in 2026 and beyond. Employers specifically look out for initiative, original thinking, and innovation systems thinking outside the box problem solving. Especially in the age of AI slop, your originality and creative direction from a human standpoint will prove invaluable.
Resume bullet point example:
- Created an XYZ system that simplified and streamlined the ABC process and reduced issues by 20%.
Skill 6: AI Literacy & Strategy
Anyone can use AI tools or copy and paste from ChatGPT. That’s not what leadership is about.
Leadership and management skills require high-level AI skills, such as:
- Understanding AI strategy within the context of the role
- Applied AI and ethical impact.
- Knowing where AI can add value.
- Understanding how to apply AI to redesign workflows.
- Understanding its limitations and risk, and how to mitigate that risk with humans in the loop.
Resume bullet point example:
- Created an AI agent workflow for XYZ project using (name your AI tools), resulting in 20 hours saved
Skill 7: Taking Ownership Of Projects & Outcomes
It’s easy to cast a blame when something goes wrong or to take full responsibility when everything goes right. But good leaders know how to take ownership and responsibility for both positive and negative outcomes.
Instead of casting blame, they self-reflect. They consider lessons learned and they use this to inform their thinking and next steps.
Resume bullet point example:
- Managed the end-to-end delivery of XYZ and delivered (name measurable improvements)
Here’s a bonus quick tip:
Avoid using phrases like “assisted,” “supported,” “helped with,” “was responsible for,” as these diminish your leadership presence. Instead, lean into powerful active verbs, like:
- Delivered
- Managed
- Led
- Spearheaded
- Designed
- Initiated
- Launched
- Orchestrated
By now, you should understand that you don’t need a title to prove that you’re ready for leadership.
Leadership roles are built on behaviors, and you taking time right now to proactively demonstrate leadership skills and values within your current role, even without formal management training or experience.