12 ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR NEW MANAGERS TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN CAREER

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Babita Sharma, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

12 ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR NEW MANAGERS TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN CAREER

’’ If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.’’
Lao Tzu

Why do I say this?
Well, I say this in the context of skills. Because ,Your skills are your assets, that no one can take away from you.
Skills are your strengths using which you can navigate successfully over the challenges that come your way.

In this post, I will share 12 skills that you MUST learn to move confidently and seamlessly in your career, be more successful and shine brightly despite the challenges that come your way.
So first let me explain What are skills and Why they are important.

WHAT ARE SKILLS AND WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT ?

Skills are your set of knowledge, abilities, and experience needed to do a job.
Skills are like a currency in the professional world.
They help you to deal with any challenging situation effectively. You are more confident about yourself.
They enhance your value as an employee and help you earn more. You become more attractive to your employer.
You have better prospects of rising professionally.

In the present changing world, work environments are changing at a fast pace.
Professionals need to master certain basic skills to cope with the demands and changes in the workplace.

Now let me explain 3 different types of skills which are necessary for career success.

3 TYPES OF SKILLS EVERY NEW MANAGER NEEDS TO MASTER

There are 3 basic types of skills you must develop to help you move with the changes around.

The 3 Basic types of skills every New Manager needs to develop are :

Intrapersonal skills – Self Management and Self awareness -Planfulness, self-discipline, ability to deal with and overcome distractions, ability to adjust one’s strategy and approach as needed, ability to distinguish between wants and needs. Creative thinking and problem solving

Interpersonal skills -Ability to develop relationships with others. Self Confidence .verbal and nonverbal communication, Empathy, listening, openness to feedback, reliability, Positive attitude

Technical skills – Job Proficiency in areas important for you to succeed in your career. They are the abilities and knowledge needed to perform specific tasks – eg Programming Languages, Design Programs, Mechanical equipment.

Having said that, I would like to emphasize that for success in your career, you need to use your personal and interpersonal skills apart from the professional skills to achieve success in your career.
There are 2 reasons why you must learn these skills.

One is because challenges are an unavoidable and inevitable part of work and life .
Two ,because you have to interact with a variety of people to get things done, personal and interpersonal skills are very important to work together, strike deals, complete projects in time.

Using your skills can help you move successful despite of the challenges and make you feel more confident and successful.

Below I have selected 12 such skills from my own experience which are very important for success in your professional life.
So, Let’s dive deeper into 12 personal and interpersonal skills that will help you to shine in your career !

TIME MANAGEMENT

Time management impacts the performance and productivity of employees at the workplace.
Prioritising projects and tasks, managing your schedules help you to improve employees’ efficiency and meet deadlines and produce a better quality of work.
Good time management skills enable you to complete a task in a specific time frame, despite challenges and tight schedules.it helps you accomplish your goals faster.
On the other hand, it minimizes stress and anxiety.
Time is the only non-renewable resource.
Time lost is gone forever. Respect time and time will respect you.
It is very critical to master time management for success.

DELEGATION

To be a successful team leader delegation is a critical management skill. You have to drive results through others.
4 Reasons Why Delegation is Important are :
1.Delegation helps you to assign and allocate tasks to people who are right to do them.
2.It is an effective tool to help accomplish projects efficiently.
3.Delegation helps to develop the individual capacities of the team members, boost the productivity of the organization, and help to save time.
4.It builds a sense of responsibility and accountability in the employees.
So delegation is an essential skill for the overall growth and efficiency of the organization and its employees.
Practice delegation as much as you can.

LEARNING AGILITY

This is a quote by Alvin Tofler.
In the present century where the environment is changing rapidly, New skills are emerging quickly.
The definitions of success have changed.
Success is no longer about what you know,it is more about adapting to the changes.
You need to expand your knowledge and skills to be able to use the new information and respond to the changes happening around you.
Learn, unlearn and relearn is the mantra today.
Be an agile learner.

ADAPTABLE TO CHANGE

Where the workplace landscape is changing so fast, you need to shift your mental gears fast and respond to the needs of the workplace, industry trends, and business dealers.
Mental agility and dynamism is the skill you need to employ regularly.
So be adaptable to changes quickly. Adopt the new learnings and processes and become adept at them .
Adapt, Adopt, and Adept.

RESILIENCE

Setbacks and failures are a part of life, but how you choose to deal with those roadblocks is what is critical to your success.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back in the face of obstacles and failures.
When you are resilient, you don’t focus on the ups and downs. Instead, you stay focused on your long-term goals, and you never lose confidence in your ability to prevail.
By helping you face challenges and difficulties, resilience also enables you to handle stress more positively.
So resilience is an important skill to be successful as a manager.
Be resilient and transform stress to eustress.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

As a manager, you are a role model to the team.
Your mood and emotions affect others around you.
Having control over your emotions builds a psychologically safe environment and helps you earn the trust of your employees.
By listening to them and being emotionally available, you can help team members solve the challenges quickly, resolve conflicts and build a cohesive team.
Emotional intelligence improves employees’ performance and productivity and helps in retaining them.
It helps build stronger bonds with people.
It fosters trust. Employees feel they are understood and supported.
Practice self-awareness and self-management.

PROBLEM-SOLVING

Problems arise in the workplace each day. So it is important to solve problems and find good solutions to them to reach your goals faster.
Identifying and finding solutions helps the company to move forwards.
Employers value employees who can work through the challenges on their own by identifying issues and looking for alternative solutions and making sound decisions.
Problem-solving skill builds the confidence of your team and superiors in you and sets you apart from others.

Read the Post –7 Reasons Why Problem Solving Is Important For New Managers .

COMMUNICATION

As a manager, you need to communicate with your top line seniors and boss, your downline peers and employees.
Apart from this, you have to deal with clients, suppliers, business dealers -meaning you have to communicate up and down as well as across the organisation.
You have to learn all forms of communication like speaking, writing, and listening.
Developing strong speaking skills and making effective presentations is necessary to put your point, ideas across and get everyone to hear you.
Since most of the communication happens by messaging, writing effective emails and messages quickly and accurately is important.
Empathetic listening is critical to accomplish projects and business deals.
You also need to have difficult conversations on employee performance, compensation, and appraisals.
Giving and receiving feedback to and from seniors and teammates is also a necessary part of communication effectively.
Communication helps you to reach an understanding, avoid daily conflicts, and improve employee engagement.

COLLABORATION

In this globally connected world, it has become increasingly important to work as a team.
It is no longer about individual contribution or working in isolation.
Projects have become more complex.
They require you to collaborate with team members who have diverse thinking and perspectives, share knowledge, and contribute to the common goal, for the benefit of all as well as the organization.
So collaborating with different team members and sharing knowledge is a very important skill for success.

For good team performance and the growth of the organisation as well as the individuals, you need to leverage others’ potential, build cohesiveness in the team, lead the team through challenges, and help the team work towards the common organisational goals.
You also need seniors and colleagues to buy in your goals and implement your strategies.
Here your influencing skills come into play.
Influencing the thoughts and attitude of the employees, clients, seniors, persuading them, connecting them, encouraging and committing them towards a common goal calls for you to be a great influencer to make a positive impact on them.
Without the ability to influence others, influencing the most important things in work and life cannot be achieved.
Therefore use your influencing skills to the fullest.

NEGOTIATION

You need to negotiate with your boss, your teammates, your clients, suppliers, business partners, and about your work and salary.
You need to use your negotiation skills to create win-win situations to reach your goals, whether they are income, project tasks, or closing deals with your suppliers.
Having an effective Negotiation skill helps you move in your day-to-day work life successfully.

TEAM LEADERSHIP

Managers have people to work for them, and leaders have people follow them.
Leaders develop more leaders. They are looked up to for inspiration.
So this is the key difference between a manager and a team leader.
To grow from a manager into a leader you need to develop and practice more leadership skills like setting goals, planning, strategizing, coaching and empowering others, motivating them, leading them with emotional intelligence, and developing your voice as a leader.
You need to learn strategic planning, project management, people development, people management and create the right organizational culture for the overall growth and success of the organization as well as individual team members.
Focus on developing Leadership Skills.

CONCLUSION

In the ever-changing marketplace, demanding clients, balancing between your colleagues, seniors, and keeping going is not an easy task.
But is it not impossible also.
Learnability, Agility, Adaptability, and Resilience are the skills that make managers successful in the face of changes.
And because it is no longer about you working all alone, but the organization as a whole, goals, strategic planning, time management, delegation, collaboration, coaching, motivating, emotional intelligence, and leadership are the critical skills that you need to master and practice to create a future worth having.
As I said in the beginning –’Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life .’
It is the same way with skills. They are something intrinsic in you that no one can take away and they will help you to overcome any tough situation and create a successful future.
I hope I have enlightened you about the skills you need to be successful as a new manager .
To help you even further I would like to ask you one question –
’’ If there is one skill I can help you with , what would that be ?’’
What is the one skill I can write about ?
Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.

Babita Sharma
Leadership Coach