The 4 essential skills of a master manager
Some supervisors are great motivators, but lack a strategic vision. Others are experts at piecing together a team, but can’t stay organized.
Studies of top managers have found it’s hard to be an effective team leader without having some mastery of the following four skill sets. Review each and consider how well you’re mastering each one:
1. Interpersonal skills
Neglecting the interpersonal aspect of the job can leave you hamstrung by miscommunication and substandard team performance. What to focus on:
1. Set and communicate goals. Work with your team to define exactly what you want to achieve and precisely how you’ll measure your accomplishments. Then discuss these goals with employees frequently, individually and as a team.
2. Manage projects. Lead employees in defining objectives, the steps needed to reach them, and the resources required for each step. Then allocate and organize available resources into the best possible schedule and action plan.
3. Make fair and fast decisions. A key part of your job is to choose between options, prioritize and otherwise decide important issues. As you do, consider the impact of each option on your team members and their ability to accomplish their work effectively.
4. Motivate team members. Individual team members will respond to different types of rewards and recognition. Get to know them well enough that you can help each person focus on what the team needs next—and the benefits of achieving it.
2. Strategic skills
As a manager, you help shape the organization’s present and future. Guide your team by consistently expressing and implementing a vision of what the organization can and should accomplish.
1. Watch for opportunities. Front-line team leaders are often best able to recognize and capitalize on opportunities for enhancing quality, productivity and customer satisfaction. Keep your eyes and ears open for these opportunities and deploy your team to take advantage of them.
2. Relentlessly solve problems. Spot and quickly remedy any difficulties, bottlenecks, error-prone procedures and other problems around you. Solve difficulties when you first discover them, and they’ll never have a chance to grow.
3. Maintain technical superiority. Stay current with changes, new ideas and improved methods for you and your team to do your jobs.
3. Operational skills
These are the skills most commonly thought of as “supervision.” These are fundamental responsibilities:
1. Identify work to be done. Successful managers tend to see tasks coming well before others do. Approach every task at the easiest, earliest stage you find it. Also, enlist your team’s support in identifying what’s coming next, so you can all get ready for it.
2. Plan, schedule and assign work to others. A critical part of your success is knowing your team’s skills, talents, abilities, experience and expertise—and matching them to the needs of particular jobs.
3. Monitor the work process. Look continuously for errors, omissions, missed assignments and other imperfections that, left alone, would limit the quality of your team’s results. Ask your team members how things are going, and encourage them to report problems as well as successes.
4. Empowering skills
Fostering your team’s skills and leadership qualities can make the difference between management struggles and successes.
1. Delegate responsibility for assigning and scheduling work. Your team members are closer to the work, and in perfect position to know who’s best suited to certain tasks. Give them not one but several projects at once, and allow them to prioritize the list and schedule their work toward each objective.
2. Pass on more of your decisions. Relinquish some of your direct control over how they solve problems. Offer training and encouragement to get them started, particularly if they haven’t had this freedom until now.
3. Judge employees more on what they do than how they do it. Once you agree with your team members on what’s to be accomplished, allow them to do it the way they think best. This freedom increases their motivation to succeed, as well as their enjoyment and satisfaction in doing the work.
