A lead person is an employee with great responsibility. They have to make sure the quality of products or services offered by his or her employer meets the expected standards. Lead persons provide guidance, support, and motivation to their staff. They are supervisors or managers who delegate and coordinate tasks and oversee the activities of their department. They manage conflict, monitor processes, represent their team, and hire and train staff to make sure tasks are performed accurately.
Lead persons usually have a lot on their plates, and learning curves are different from the linear path of an employee who only has to worry about his or her own performance. Lead persons constantly have to adapt to changing rules in their game, and higher-level managers rarely have time to provide coaching.
With a growing amount of work load or people under your supervision, you will have less time to communicate with individual employees. Learning how to lead is not a skill you can practice on your own, you have to grow by being stretched thin in certain situations.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a lead person. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.16 an hour? That's $68,969 a year!
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a lead person, we found that a lot of resumes listed 9.7% of lead people included communication, while 9.2% of resumes included safety rules, and 7.1% of resumes included quality standards. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the lead person job title. But what industry to start with? Most lead people actually find jobs in the manufacturing and retail industries.
If you're interested in becoming a lead person, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 12.4% of lead people have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.4% of lead people have master's degrees. Even though some lead people have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a lead person. When we researched the most common majors for a lead person, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on lead person resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a lead person. In fact, many lead person jobs require experience in a role such as welder. Meanwhile, many lead people also have previous career experience in roles such as machine operator or electrician.