The successful business manager needs skills and talent.
Managerial skills can easily be developed as time passes through experience, mentoring, and training. However, when referring to natural talent, this is definitely something that cannot be obtained.
Productive companies will always invest a lot of money in developing and identifying truly effective managers. If this is the type of job that you are after, you should know that the following traits are necessary.
You Must Have Great Leadership Skills
This is one crucial attribute that so many managers actually lack these days.
Most companies will promote those employees that have great individual results. The problem is that a really good salesperson will rarely be a really good manager. The true leader will always be able to inspire trust, delegate responsibility, and provide direction. A manager won't be a "leader" if they cannot perfectly perform these three tasks.
While leadership skills can be gained in time, the innately talented manager will actually be able to gain all that he or she needs to be a true leader in a short period of time. This is something that is a lot more important than what many believe at the moment. Every single successful business manager out there is a leader who takes the team he or she manages and makes it work better, faster, and more effectively.
You Need To Have A Clear Communication Strategy
It is very important for the manager to have really strong communication skills. It is not enough to show that you appreciate your employees. You need to properly highlight what you want from them so that everything can go smoothly.
The effective manager has to be able to properly decipher, understand, and then relate the vision of the organization to the employees so that productivity is maintained. If communication is ineffective, employees will not understand what the manager tells them. This can lead to so many different problems in the future, and such a chain reaction can have a devastating effect on the profit of any company.
If you need help figuring out your communication style at work, take this FREE quiz. It helps you determine your communication style, and how you can use it to your advantage in the workplace.
You Must Have The Ability To Adapt
Business rarely goes exactly as you initially envisioned it. The successful manager has the ability to adapt.
This is something that makes him/her really effective at the job. If the manager can adapt to the circumstances that are unexpected, the entire team will achieve more success in the future. This also means that a successful manager has the necessary creative thinking skills to find a new solution to any problem that may appear.
You Need To Focus On Developing Your Team
You cannot have employees that remain still when referring to the skills that they have. Any financial blog on the internet will tell you that an effective manager will make sure that employees improve and that they become better at the job that is done.
Developing other people basically involves cultivating talents and then motivating them to channel gained talents towards increasing productivity.
You Have To Build Relationships
It's a shame to see that there are still managers who do not understand the importance of networking. A manager needs to establish good relationships with potential clients and employees. Those employees who feel they are valued will always be more effective and will put in the extra effort that can bring in better results at the end of the day.
When building a relationship with an employee, it is really important that the manager showcases empathy and trust in the ability of the team. This is something that helps everyone enjoy working under the guidance of the specific team leader. Make sure that you know as much as possible about the employees—their strong points, and their weak points.
You Need To Constantly Develop Your Skills
The effective manager is the one who knows the problems that he or she has and constantly works on solving them. Career development is a huge part of career success in this job and in any other job. You need to develop in order to be able to lead employees.
If you remain at the same level, the entire team remains at the same level. That manager that continues to grow will eventually learn how to use the above-mentioned natural talents in order to make the team work flawlessly and even encourage the employees to do the same thing.
The manager who never develops is basically bound to eventually lag behind as he or she cannot adapt to the market. This and adaptability go hand-in-hand. You cannot have one without the other.
Try to improve as much as possible with every single project that you do and always be truthful to yourself about the flaws that you have. Work on them as soon as possible and your team members will see that you put in the effort to change.
It is so much harder to be an effective manager than we think. There is this belief that you can simply learn how to be a great leader in college. This is definitely not the case. Many of the really successful managers from around the world did not have formal training. You need to be sure that you constantly grow. That is, most likely, the most important trait to have if you want to be a great leader.
Struggling to land a leadership position? We can help!
Check out our FREE resources page!
Or, join our career growth club today and get access to one-on-one career coaching, resume and cover letter reviews, online tutorials, and unlimited networking opportunities—all in your back pocket!
If you want more FREE career advice, follow us on TikTok!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
How do you cope with being unemployed during the holidays? Like any loss, a job loss results in grief. Inevitably you must mourn the loss of the job and all that it provided: Security, money, self-esteem, status, identity, etc. I like this model for dealing with loss that is similar to the traditional Kubler-Ross Model, but provides 7 stages for moving BEYOND the grief. In Part I an overview of the grieving process as it relates to the loss of a job. Part II will give suggestions for how to enhance your transition through the process.
1. SHOCK & DENIAL
In this stage you will feel generally numb – this serves as a coping mechanism to protect you from what may be potentially overwhelming. If you recently have lost your job you may be unable to think about how you feel about that, what you will do, and so forth. This stage keeps you moving forward physically and ensures you will meet all your basic needs.
2. PAIN & GUILT
Pain and heart-break are laced with guilt in this stage. You may relate it to a lost love from which you suffer and know it must be that you are not worthy or must have deserved it.
3. ANGER & BARGAINING
Anger is normal. You may reach this stage pretty quickly after a job loss, whether through lay-off, illness, injury or takeover. Accept this, express it, but be mindful how you do so – you may need the help of those closest to you most during the next days, weeks, and/or months.
4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS
It is important for you to “feel” how you feel – you are likely to feel depressed and lonely. You are cut off from your normal social support, however helpful it was. The bottom line is that just the act of getting up and dressed and out to work every day and interacting with others gives you some social and emotional support that is seriously felt to be missing at this point.
You should allow these feelings, recognize them and think about what you need going forward.
5. THE UPWARD TURN
Eventually you will attain a rhythm in your job search and networking and will feel some sort of calm and organization. You may flash back occasionally to feelings of guilt when you realize this. Understand that this is the first step in moving beyond your grief from the loss of your job and that it is entirely NORMAL.
6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH
As you begin the upward turn, you will eventually be able to think about where you want to be and what type of job you might like to have. For many this is the first time they have had the opportunity to consider what type of job they might like to do and/or what they ENJOY. Many note that the lay-off, downsizing, job change was the best thing that could have happened because it forced them to look at what is out there relative to what they had to offer.
7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE
Eventually, you will be able to accept that you may not be the same exact person you were before your “loss”, but somehow you are the best you can be and you have made the most of what life has to offer. You are able to move forward, seeking and finding other employment opportunities. It isn’t easy, but it is possible, even if it doesn’t seem so right now.
If you want some general tips on what to do if you lose your job you might like to read a prior article, You lost your job. Now what?
Mary is a Masters-prepared Career Counselor with over 18 years experience in resume writing, personal branding, career assessment and counseling. Specializing in non-traditional specialized careers and career-transitioning, she has the ability to synthesize and focus your unique skills and abilities to obtain interviews for the positions you want with the employers you want to notice you. Follow her on Twitter at @MarySevinsky.
