6 Essential Skills Managers Shold have

Every industry, of course, has its specific knowledge. However, in addition to this, the qualities that make an individual a good manager tend to be fairly similar across industries. The following are 6 essential skills that Managers need to have in order to manage employees effectively and efficiently to get the best from them.

 1. Good communication

Having good Communication skills is probably the most important skill of all for managers to have. Unless you can properly communicate with those you supervise, the rest of the skills really won’t matter. In numerous types of management tasks, the most common and first thing that needs to be done is to communicate your opinions, expectations and needs to others. You shouldn’t be a Manager if you don’t enjoy working with people. You also need to be able to send others the right messages and make sure that they understand you. The type of power that you use for persuading others on your views is also very important.

2. Good Organisation

Probably the second most important skill that you can have as a Manager is the ability to organise. You need to be able to come up with a plan and then schedule, organise and follow it. This also involves understanding your company’s processes and rules as well as among individuals. You must be able to predict what will happen and at what time.

3. Team Building

Good Managers know how to keep their teams intact. The well being of team members does not benefit from having competition within the team. However, competition between teams can be very stimulating and healthy. If one of the team members speeds ahead and leaves the rest of the members behind without helping them, the team will most likely fail. A good Manager will notice these irregularities very easily. He or she will attempt to correct the situation through having discussions with the team, mostly through listening to members. To a great extent, a successful and healthy team relies on the trust between members and with the Manager. If a Manager is able to build trust systematically, the team members will feel much more committed and appreciated.

4. Leadership

It isn’t enough to just listen to the problems of coworkers. A good Manager needs to solve these problems and prove that he or she is committed to the goals of the team. It is also the Manager’s responsibility to define goals along with team members and then assign responsibility to various team members clearly. A good Manager will have a clear vision in terms of the direction he or she wants the team to be headed in. Team members need to be ‘infected’ with this vision so that everyone is headed in the same direction.

5. Ability to Deal with Changes Effectively

Many Managers are thoroughly familiar with the entire working process. This allows them to do things in an almost automatic manner. A good Manager is adaptable and flexible. When faced with obstacles, he or she has the ability to react quickly. Stress doesn’t prevent the Manager from making the right decisions for the team and company.

6. Domain Knowledge

Good Managers have a thorough understanding of the process he or she is managing, including the type of tasks that team members are performing and how they are working. This skill isn’t quite as important as the other ones are. However, in some cases, not having it will mean that the Manager and the team don’t ever work at maximum capacity or use all of their potentials due to a lack of understanding of one another.

How Your Management Skills can be Improved

Every individual needs to follow his or her own path in order to achieve the ultimate goal. Every person is different. Some are great communicators but may lose control in stressful situations. Others are very good Leaders and are able to motivate their teams, however, they still end up failing due to lacking in common sense and organisational skills. The main questions you should have is: “Why do I want to be a Manager in the first place and what kind of a Manager do I want to become?”