The 9 Skills Every Leader Needs (Based on 15 Years of Research)

What actually separates high-performing leaders from the rest?

In this stream, we break down the Nine Critical Cognitive Skills of Leadership — a framework developed by Dr. Michael Mumford and his team after over 15 years of research with military officers, ROTC cadets, and leadership development programs.

This isn’t about personality traits or charisma. It’s about how leaders think.
The study dives into how expertise evolves into case-based knowledge, how those experiences form mental models, and how cognitive skills bring it all together in high-stakes decision-making.

We’ll cover:

The difference between experience and structured expertise

Why case-based knowledge is your leadership “library”

How mental models are built — and how they guide real-world decisions

The 9 critical skills: from problem definition to wisdom to sensemaking

Practical ways to assess and train each of these skills in your own development

📌 Whether you’re leading in business, service, or sport — this stream is for anyone serious about developing cognitive range, performance under pressure, and decision-making clarity.

🔗 Mentioned study: Mumford, M.D. Todd, E.M., Higgs, C. & McIntosh, T.,(2017). The Leadership Quarterly.

If you're ready to go beyond “what” leaders do and into how they think — you’re in the right place.

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