Management Skills sometimes overlap with leadership skills, some of the management skills are problem-solving, decision making, planning& organization, effective communication, delegation, & time management.
A great manager is the one who can find the right person for the right job at the right time to do the things right.
Management is not about informing the people to do the things, management is about finding, motivating & involving the right person to get the things done.
To be a great and effective manager or leader, you need an extensive set of skills ranging from communication & coordination to planning & problem-solving.
Consequently, management skills can’t be developed overnight, you need to identify your improvement areas and start developing as well as evaluating your skill sets for a long-term career success.
Here are few essential management skills you should focus on improving.
Communication
Managers need to motivate people, inspire subordinates, convince customers, and report to the people or organization they serve; and to do all these, you need to be a great communicator.
The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication. The question is what & how to listen to be a great communicator; you need to know and understand the need, interest, concern & expectation of the people you want to communicate, also you need to develop non-verbal communication as well to deliver the best.
To deliver a clear and concise message to your team, customer or reporting authority, you need to have good writing skills apart from good oratory & non-verbal communication skills.
Writing skills includes writing business emails, business proposals, drafting plans and drafting training processes to your subordinates. To be an effective managerial writer, you should be specific about what you want to express or deliver.
You can also read 7C’s of Effective Communication
Delegation
It is the assignment of roles or responsibilities to carry out specific tasks. Delegation involves identifying the right resources having the right skill sets to carry out the specific task.
Laissez Faire leadership style is one of the leadership style based on trust or loyalty for delegating tasks. Moreover, you have to develop the skills of identifying resources with the right skill set and the right attitude.
Motivation
Self-motivation is the foundation of motivating others, and consolidation of the individual goals into organizational goals is the objective of motivation.
Managers need to interact with subordinates to increase productivity and employee satisfaction.
Most employers look for a manager who can identify people’s strength & weakness, encourage them to develop skills, and involve right person towards the right job.
Employers always look for the leaders who can create leaders of leading people, for this reason, employers need managers who can motivate people, train subordinates, encourage the team and develop leaders out of the subordinates.
Planning & Organization
Strategic thinking, problem-solving, time management, critical thinking, and innovation are the key skills to be great planner & organizer.
Planning or organizing means you need to focus on short-term goals as well as strategizing or organizing on long-term goals.
To be an effective planner, you should master the art of time management, time management is setting priorities & goals based on strategic thinking, identifying and involving the right resources at the right time.
And to involve right resources at the right time; you need to list the skill set required in all phases of your priority and goals. Accordingly, start identifying the right person for the skill sets and involve them as per the schedule and priorities.
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
Critical thinking and problem solving require good analytical skills, rational thinking, imagination, skepticism, and evaluation of factual or empirical data.
Problem-solving OR critical thinking skills are most often considered as deductive reasoning. However, practicing deductive reasoning to make that a habit can make your critical thinking intuitive.
Apart from solving organizational policies and procedures, you need to handle conflicts, negotiate with people, and make decisions.
To do all these efficiently and effectively you need to pay attention to your work, conscious of situation & action, develop self–discipline, and practice self-monitoring.
You should start focusing on improving cognitive skills abilities to become an effective problem solver or critical thinker.
Learning
Managers are the leaders to do the things right, execute the vision into action and transform the efforts into reality.
Learning for a manager means having awareness of the industry, developing or improving new skills, adaptability and learning from past.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy
Learning is a set of four steps– observation, analysis, understanding, and implementation.
You need to learn from your mistake or from your past and you should not repeat the same mistake. And to learn from past always ask the question to yourself –“Why & how did this happen?”
Your cognitive or intuitive abilities will automatically visualize the observation or perform the analysis. And it will let you understand what is right and what to implement.
You can also read learning styles and cognitive learning for effective learning.
Professionalism
Managerial professionalism includes honesty, ethics, integrity, and diplomacy. A great manager is known for his identity, attitude, and behavior towards the people. Dealing with conflicts, situation and people involves diplomacy, positive attitude and showing the right thing.
A manager should set a clear example of what he/she strives for and show what he/she stands for.
As a manager you should listen much, think much and speak less, this is the art of diplomacy and wisdom. Be conscious & attentive towards the work and the people to develop this skill.
Apart from these management skills, as a manager, you have to evaluate employee performance or job seekers, generate financial reports, interpret legal activities of the business.
And you have to do a variety of works related to product management, project management, process management, change management, budget management, and conflict management. Start improving or developing these skills from today.
Ashim, the Founder of MindWiper, loves to learn, share, and educate various dimensions of life skills development. After graduating with an engineering degree, he worked with major ICT industries in India and finally he followed his dream to integrate technology for Cognitive Skills & Life Skills Development.