Top 6 Phone Apps For Self- Improvement For Leaders

Self-improvement is a great way to improve our work-life balance or our career. It is finding something about what we are lacking and taking it to the next level. Once we reach that next level, we find something else that we can make grander, and thus the cycle continues helping us to learn and grow in a continuous cycle. 

In this day of technology, there are many apps that can help us achieve a level of self-improvement in many different areas. This list looks at a selection of leadership skills that people try to improve and some of the more useful apps that are available today to help them reach their goals.

Leadership Benefits of Problem-Solving Skills

Those who are not leaders in the workplace turn to the leader when a problem needs solving. It is assumed that leaders have the ability to solve the problem, it is certain that they have the responsibility to do so. This means it is important for a leader to learn and develop these skills. It allows them to:

• Create a work rota where everyone’s needs are accommodated.
• Keep staff working together as a team.
• Turn problems into opportunities for improvement.
• Evaluate the company, see issues before they arise, and create a situation that allows the company and its people to thrive.

Ultimately, these skills are essential beyond the point of a team member coming to you with an immediate problem. In today’s world of technology, there exist many apps to help you develop these skills.

Apps To Improve Problem Solving

Luminosity: The brain training, a problem-solving game designed by neuroscientists. The idea behind the app is to use games to challenge and enhance memory and attention. When inside the app you will be able to choose up to seven skills to train. Memory, Attention, Flexibility, Problem Solving, Speed, Math, and Language.

Once it has calculated your baseline through a series of tests it will provide you with a comparison to others in your age group before giving you access to daily sets of games designed to help you improve your problem-solving skills.

100 Doors Challenge: This series, and others like it, present you with a problem that you have to solve. The door is locked, and you need to solve the problem. While it starts off easy (find the key under a floorboard) it eventually takes you to new and challenging lengths where you have to try the craziest of practical solutions to solve the problem. This encourages you to think creatively. Some versions of the game include timers which add to the pressure of quick problem-solving.

Leadership Benefits of Learning Logic

How is this different from problem-solving skills? While it is closely related to problem-solving, there is a major difference. Problem-solving skills help you to discern what to do with a problem. Logic skills help you to find the root of the problem so you can use your problem-solving skills with the most efficiency. 

The difference can be illustrated in this way. 

Logic skills require a slower, calmer way of thinking. It is making a painting of a little Cotswold village. You need the rolling hills, the winding rivers, the little huts, and sweet bridges. You carefully paint the picture step by step.

Problem-solving is more like a Jackson Pollock painting. The value is still high but it has been achieved at a quicker, more outside-the-box pace.

• Logic skills enable you to analyze a situation to come up with a workable plan.
• Logic can lead to stronger, more secure results than what is made through problem-solving. But it can also miss out on the opportunities that problem-solving discovers as it is a safer way of thinking.

It is up to the leader to discern which skill is needed more in any situation.

Apps to Improve Logic Skills

Puzzle book: Games to improve logic have been around for years on paper. Since the invention of the smartphone, apps that have the same function have flourished. Wordsearches, crosswords, codeword, sudoku, picture cross, and many more are available here. Each game requires you to think logically about the steps you take to complete the puzzle. Daily pages encourage you to work on improving your skills on a daily basis.

Brain Training: This is an app similar in nature to Luminosity but with its focus on the logical side of the mind. Take the in-built IQ challenge and then work to improve your logic skills through a series of simple but challenging games. 

Leadership Benefits of Learning a New Language

There is a lot to be said about learning a new language. Language is useful when dealing with a team from multicultural backgrounds. Here’s one experience of a leader who took the time to learn two new languages to help her team.

I was in a situation where the restaurant was suffering due to a breakdown in communication. The staff wanted to help but with two being Polish, one being Spanish, two being Welsh and the rest being strictly English, it was easy for people to get confused. At the time, I only knew Welsh and English. After a few basic lessons in Polish and Spanish things began to improve. Using four languages to direct the crew was not easy but it was very rewarding. Productivity shot up, everyone felt more included, and the team began to work with more cohesion. 

Situations like this are more common than one would think. In most cases, those of different languages will have a language in common. But learning a few words, even if it is simple, please and thank you, in the mother tongue of your team, will improve relations. 

Apps To Learn Languages

Duolingo: From Spanish to Klingon. With a lot of languages to learn you can spend your time getting a basic knowledge of each or becoming an expert of one. When it asks you why you want to learn a language it even gives you the option to select brain training showing its value as a learning tool.

Rosetta Stone: This app takes an immersion approach to learning a language. Instead of teaching you words and phrases of your level it fully immerses you in the world of the language. You will learn to reason in that language, think in the language and problem solve in that language. A great app to fully understand a new tongue.

Leadership Benefits to Staying Healthy

Anyone on a journey of self-improvement often finds themselves in a situation where they are looking at apps that help them to stay healthy, improve muscle structure, change the diet or lose weight. These can be very useful when kept in their proper place. 

Indeed, using apps that help you to feel good about yourself, your image, and your body can:

• Boosts your confidence.
• Improves performance.
• Improves your focus.

These are traits that can help a good leader stay a good leader. 

Apps to Keep You Healthy

Sweatcoin: This is an app to count your daily steps. For every 1000 steps, you get 1 Sweatcoin. 10,000 steps a day get you 10 Sweatcoins. You can then spend your rewards on items within the Sweatcoin store making you feel rewarded for keeping healthy by walking.

Home Workout: With or without equipment, this app series allows you to improve your physical health, strength and abilities. With daily challenges and monthly goals to help keep you motivated, it’s easy to find a program that works for you.

Lose Weight in 30 Days: An app with a plan. Covering everything from your daily workout to your meal plan. The app comes with a weight tracker so you can see the actual results of what you are doing. Nothing feels better than meeting your goals as you get healthier.

Leadership Benefits to Learning Charisma (and other communication skills)

Someone with Charisma can inspire others through their words and deeds to be a better person. Charismatic people make great speeches that fill one with fire. Look at a war movie where the leader stands in front of their men and gives that final speech before the charge. Does it not make you want to stand alongside them and charge forward yourself? That is the power of charisma.

Having refined charismatic skills also allows a leader to:

• Make people believe in themselves.
• Align someone’s goals with their own.
• Develop trusting relationships with their staff that reduces the turnover rate.
• Influence others with well-spoken ideas.
• A Charismatic leader appears to be more confident.
• They are generally more approachable.

Charisma can also lead to a form of leadership. Charismatic leadership. So if you are training to become a leader, it is a good skill to build up.

Apps To Improve Charisma and Communication

Metronome Beats: We can give the most beautiful, well thought out speech. But if we speak too fast or too slow all the good work that went into writing the speech goes to waste. Metronome beats keep you at the optimal pace by telling you when you are speaking too fast or slow. Use it as a constant companion when training or keep it, someone, where you can see it during a speech to help you perfect that communication pace.

Orai: This app will record what you say. You can set it to record no matter what conversational situation you are in.  It will then analyze what you said and give you constructive criticism on improving your pronunciation, pauses or other speaking issues you may have.

Communication skills Development in 21 Days: An app full of communication tips to help you improve in conversation skills through well thought out information. With a different set of information to concentrate on each day for 21 days, you are given a goal to aim for as you work to improve on skills like:

• Asking the right questions.

• Understanding how to speak to different generations.
• And how to ask for advice.  

Leadership Benefits to Using Goal Apps

Fabulous: The daily routine planner. The app allows you to set goals every day. It is a little pocket coach to help you get the most out of each day of life.

Do It Now: This app is designed with gamers in mind. It turns all your goals into quests. Somehow just the change in name from goal to quest makes it more appealing. It is simple, effective, and fun to use.

Actie: The goal and habit tracker. Filled with statistics and overviews so you can see how well you are doing, know where to improve, and set goals with easy templates.

Habit Forest: A feel-good goal tracker. The more goals you meet the more your forest grows. You can decorate the forest with your rewards. Gaining the rewards through a simple but effective goal tracker.