Leadership is influence. Leadership is a mandate you are given in a relationship that allows you to influence the other person.
Without that initial contact no leadership is possible.
So the first task of the leader is to create contact. This contact has two different aspects.
One is of course the ability to create contact with the other person or the group. Then again a group is made up of relationships, so it is always about creating contact in a relationship.
The other aspect in question needs to happen first though for leadership to succeed. That is the ability to create contact with yourself.
This contact with yourself is sometimes labelled presence, mindfulness or authenticity.
A person who is fully in contact with themselves will be immensely more capable to bridge the gap to another human being and penetrate the everyday clutter of impressions, information and input to create a connection to that person.
When other key phenomena such as trust, respect and openness are present in the relationship influence is allowed to happen and effective leadership occurs.
Common blocks to contact with oneself can include for example justification, fear, overwhelm, stress and analysis paralysis.
Common blocks to contact between individuals are for example fear, overemphasized need for control, judgement, irresponsible communication and the obvious fact if not at least one of the persons in the relationship, the leader to be, is able to create a genuine contact with themselves.
So skill one of leadership is establishing contact, with yourself and then others. The second skill is, once contact is established, the ability to use one's personality in a adequate manner to influence the other person in the desired way.