Key management skills
The possession of managerial skills is what distinguishes a successful manager from just a manager. For better orientation and for the simplest memorization and practicing, all important skills can be depicted in the form of a pyramid. The construction will consist of four levels, each of which will contain several skills. At the same time, each level will correspond to the importance of skills in the work of a manager.
The first level will contain the most basic skills for a manager, which form the basis of this profession.
Planning. The most important element in any case, which is sometimes bypassed. The detail of planning varies depending on the goal, but usually the more detailed it is, the better. Planning is also distinguished by levels (strategic, operational, tactical) and types (production, marketing, finance).
Organization. Once you have decided “what to do” — planning, you need to understand “how to do” — organization. To do this, you need to identify the functions you need, set tasks, find resources, performers and distribute responsibility among them.
Managing. It is not enough to assemble a strong football team to win. You also need to be able to lead her. That’s what a coach is for. The manager is the same coach for his employees. He must be one hundred percent sure that everyone understands the common mission, everyone knows their tasks and that everyone has the necessary resources to implement them. Like a good football coach, a manager should not sit on the bench and watch the “game” from afar. He should guide her, give advice, guidance, motivate and help her achieve results.
Control. The head is obliged to monitor the work and its compliance with the plan in order, if necessary, to take urgent measures to eliminate any “emergency” and return the work to the right track.
The second level includes the skills to create and manage a strong team.
Motivation. Motivation in modern Russia is greatly underestimated, which can be said at least by how many companies still consider it an excess, if not a joke. But the truth is that motivated people can always achieve more and in a shorter time than those who completely lack any interest in their work. Therefore, motivation is, of course, very important. And the task of the manager is to act as a kind of psychologist in this regard. After all, motivation is selected individually for each person. The same methods are not suitable for everyone. Therefore, the manager must wisely distribute the responsibility among employees so that everyone can feel their value and be able to truly open up.
Training. Live for a century, train your employees for a century. Even those who seem to already know everything. The world is changing fast, and you can always learn something new for yourself. When teaching, a manager must know his people well, their weaknesses and strengths. The first to fix, the second to fix.
Involvement. Along with motivation, employee engagement is an incredibly important and even necessary moment in any job, which, unfortunately, is also often underestimated. And very wrongly. Because by involving people in the work process, allowing them to express their ideas, influence the work of the company, you give them a sense of their value and significance, show creativity, and therefore improve the work of the organization as a whole.
At the third level, there are skills that develop the personal qualities of the manager himself.
Self-management. As the Canadian psychologist and psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson once said in one of his interviews as a council for young people who want to change the world, “First clean your room.” Interestingly, this phrase is good regardless of whether you understand it literally or figuratively. In any case, you will have to “clean your room” first. And only then will you be able to change the world. In other words, it’s hard to be a manager and manage other people if you can’t manage yourself. It’s like giving advice to others without sticking to it yourself — they just won’t have value. After all, the advice that is based on personal experience is valuable. Those instructions that have been felt for themselves are valuable.
Time management. Where to go without him. Time management has probably become relevant since its inception. Only now do we understand this, realize, feel time and can “manage” it visually. Making plans, lists, taking notes and writing in diaries.
It’s no secret that a manager — a person under whom other people work — should be able to manage his time. And the time of their employees. As usual, the following immutable truths still apply in time management: make a to-do list and start with the most important ones; do not take on several tasks at once; break down tasks into stages, so you will cope with them faster and easier.
The fourth level of the pyramid, its top— is leadership.
A leader is a vocation. Salesman is a vocation. A football player, after all, is also a vocation. Partly, one can agree with this, and partly it is so. But the same can be said about all professions. And you can also say that you can become a good leader, salesman and football player, even if you were not born with a “vocation”. Of course, no one disputes that there are or have been people like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Cristiano Ronaldo. And they were or are the best in their field by vocation. But they would never have become like this if they hadn’t worked hard. Talent, as you know, is 20% of success, the remaining 80% is self—improvement. Besides, these people are not the only ones of their kind, not the only ones in their professions. There are also other outstanding people, many of whom had no vocation at all, but only work and a huge dream.
Returning to the topic of leadership, it doesn’t matter if you have a “vocation”, just as your other characteristics don’t matter much, whether it’s your bright appearance or the ability to sell a pen to Jordan Belfort. Your knowledge, steely life principles and beliefs, the ability to get people to follow you are important, courage and charisma are important, which, by the way, can be trained. Your willingness and courage to turn your plans into reality are important.