1. Communication
There’s a lot of communication when you ’ re a
manager. You have to communicate with each
of your employees. You have to communicate
“sideways” with your co- workers and
customers. And you have to communicate
upwards with your own manager or executive.
You need some substance in the
communication, of course — you need to have
something worthy of being communicated . But
substance isn ’t enough — if you know what
you ’re doing and can ’t properly communicate it
to anyone else, then you ’ ll never be a good
manager.
2. Listening Skills
This is a part of communication, but I want to
single it out because it’ s so important. Some
managers get so impressed with themselves
that they spend much more of their time telling
people things than they spend listening. But no
matter how high you go in the management
hierarchy, you need to be able to listen . It’ s the
only way you ’re really going to find out what ’s
going on in your organization , and it’ s the only
way that you ’ ll ever learn to be a better
manager.
3. A Commitment to the Truth
You’ll find that the higher you are in the
management hierarchy, the less likely you are
to be in touch with reality. Managers get a lot of
brown-nosing , and people tend to sugar-coat
the news and tell managers what they want to
hear. The only way you ’ll get the truth is if you
insist on it . Listen to what people tell you , and
ask questions to probe for the truth. Develop
information sources outside of the chain of
command and regularly listen to those sources
as well. Make sure you know the truth — even
if it’ s not good news .
4. Empathy
This is the softer side of listening and truth.
You should be able to understand how people
feel , why they feel that way, and what you can
do to make them feel differently. Empathy is
especially important when you ’re dealing with
your customers . And whether you think so or
not, you ’ll always have customers . Customers
are the people who derive benefit from the
work you do. If no one derives benefit from
your work , then what ’s the point of keeping
your organization around ?
5. Persuasion
Put all four of the preceding skills together ,
because you ’ ll need them when you try to
persuade someone to do something you want
done. You could describe this as “ selling” but
it’ s more general . Whether you ’re trying to
convince your employees to give you a better
effort, your boss to give you a bigger budget , or
your customers to agree to something you
want to do for them , your persuasion skills will
be strained to their limits .
6. Leadership
Leadership is a specialized form of persuasion
focused on getting other people to follow you in
the direction you want to go. It ’s assumed that
the leader will march into battle at the head of
the army, so be prepared to make the same
sacrifices you ’re asking your employees to
make .
7. Focus
The key to successful leadership is focus . You
can ’t lead in a hundred different directions at
once, so setting an effective leadership
direction depends on your decision not to lead
in the other directions. Focusing light rays
means concentrating the light energy on one
spot. Focusing effort means picking the most
important thing to do and then concentrating
your team ’s effort on doing it .
8. Division of Work
This is the ability to break down large tasks
into sub -tasks that can be assigned to
individual employees . It ’s a tricky skill —
maybe more an art than a science, almost like
cutting a diamond . Ideally you want to figure
out how to accomplish a large objective by
dividing the work up into manageable chunks .
The people working on each chunk should be
as autonomous as possible so that the tasks
don ’t get bogged down in endless discussion
and debate. You have to pay careful attention
to the interdependencies among the chunks .
And you have to carefully assess each
employee’s strengths, weaknesses and
interests so that you can assign the best set of
sub -tasks to each employee.
9. Obstacle Removal
Inevitably, problems will occur. Your ability to
solve them is critical to the ongoing success of
your organization . Part of your job is to remove
the obstacles that are preventing your
employees from doing their best .
10. Heat Absorption
Not all problems can be solved . When upper
management complains about certain things
that can ’t be avoided (e .g ., an unavoidable
delay in a project deliverable ), it ’s your job to
take the heat. But what ’s more important, it’ s
your job to absorb the heat to keep it from
reaching your employees . It’ s the manager’ s
responsibility to meet objectives . If the
objectives aren ’t being met, then it ’s the
manager’ s responsibility to:
Make sure that upper management
knows about the problem as early as
possible.
Take all possible steps to solve the
problem with the resources you ’ve been
given .
Suggest alternatives to management that
will either solve the problem or minimize
it . These other alternatives may propose
the use of additional resources beyond
the current budget , or they may propose
a change in the objective that’s more
achievable .
Keep the problem from affecting the
performance or morale of your
employees .
11. Uncertainty Removal
When higher management can ’t give you
consistent direction in a certain area, it’ s up to
you to shield your employees from the
confusion, remove the apparent uncertainty ,
and lead your employees in a consistent
direction until there ’s a good reason to change
that direction.
12. Project Management
This is a more advanced skill that formalizes
some of attributes 7 – 11. Although both
“Management ” and “ Project Management ”
contain the word “management ,” they aren’ t
the same thing. Management implies a focus
on people , while Project Management implies a
focus on the project objective . You can be a
Manager and a Project Manager , or you can be
a Manager without being a Project Manager .
You can also be a Project Manager without
being a Manager (in which case you don ’t have
people reporting to you — you just deal with
overseeing the project- specific tasks ) .
13. Administrative and Financial Skills
Most managers have a budget , and you ’ll have
to be able to set the budget and then manage to
it. You’ll also have to deal with hiring , firing ,
rewarding good employee performance , dealing
with unacceptable performance from some
employees, and generally making sure that
your employees have the environment and
tools they need to do their work. It ’s ironic that
this is skill number 13 ( an unlucky number in
some cultures) , because a lot of managers
hate this part of the job the most . But if you ’re
good at budgeting, you ’ ll find it much easier to
do the things you want to do. And hiring and
dealing with employees on a day -to- day basis
is one of the key skills to give you the best,
happiest and most productive employees.
Conclusion
This article explains some of the things you ’ll
need to learn before you become a successful
manager. You can probably become a
manager without having all of these skills, but
you ’ll need all of them to be really successful
and to get promoted to higher levels of
management.
For every one of these skills , there are various
levels of performance . No one expects a new
manager to be superior at every one of these
skills, but you should be aware of all of them ,
and you should do everything you can to learn
more about each skill. Some of that learning
will come through education (like reading the
articles on this web site — you might want to
subscribe). But much of the learning will come
through experience — trial and error .
Just learn as much as you can about each
skill, take nothing for granted, and focus on
doing the very best that you can do. Learn from
your mistakes and try not to repeat them. And
ask for feedback — in many cases you won’t
know what you could do better unless someone tells you
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