The manager's toolkit: essential skills for people leadership

As a manager who has always been focused on personal and professional growth, I have spent a decent amount of time exploring various management resources throughout my career. Through this journey, I have discovered that there’s a handful of essential skills that every manager should aim to master. These skills will not only empower you to effectively navigate the complexities of people management, but also will enable you to lead your team more effectively and confidently.

1. Communication - fostering open dialogue

Strong communication skills are at the heart of effective management. As a manager, it is crucial for you to foster open dialogue and active listening with your team members. An inclusive and supportive communication environment promotes trust, collaboration, and a greater sense of working together towards the same goal among your team members. Here’s some tips to help you achieve this:

• Encourage your to share their thoughts and ideas. Reassure the team members that honesty will not held against them. When team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts without fear of negative consequences, they become more empowered.

• Provide constructive feedback. In a work environment, feedback is inevitable. Help your team members understand that feedback is not personal but an opportunity to improve and grow.

• Convey your expectations clearly to avoid any misunderstandings and potential conflicts.

• Make an effort to get to connect with your team members on a personal level. While you don’t necessarily have to become friends with them, getting to know them better can help bridge the perceived gap between the managerial and individual contributor roles. Simple gestures such as knowing the name of their spouse/kids/dogs, knowing their passions, celebrating personal events (ex: spouse’s birthdays) can go a long way in improving communication and creating positive working relationships.

2. Empathy - understanding & supporting team members’ needs

Being empathetic as a manager implies understanding and supporting your team members’ needs, emotions and perspectives and caring about their well-being. This has such a great impact on creating a positive work environment. Here’s my advice on cultivating empathy in your management approach:

• Adapt your management style to each individual’s needs. Recognize that the needs of a junior employee at the beginning of their professional career may differ than those of a senior subject matter expert. Adjust your approach accordingly in order to effectively support each team member.

• Keep your personal biases in check. At least once in your managerial career you will encounter direct reports with different personal views or preferences. Don’t let these influence you and treat everyone with the same commitment, regardless of personal feelings.

3. Decision-making - balancing data & intuition for optimal outcomes

This is one of the most crucial skills and it implies using data and your intuition to make informed decisions that benefit your team and/or the organization. This can become particularly useful when making tough choices. Here’s how to develop good decision-making skills:

• Work for today, plan for the future. The key to making better decisions and reducing the need for tough choices? Be prepared. A skilled manager thinks at least three months in advance. Things might go smoothly now. But what about in the next few months? Is there an event in the horizon that will disrupt the current status quo. Evaluate various scenarios and develop a plan for each.

• Reflect on past decisions and learn from them. Look at previous decisions, observe the experience and outcomes. Ask yourself if there’s anything you could have done differently to achieve a better result, or reach the same outcome but faster or more efficiently. Use these lessons to inform your future decision making process.

4. Coaching and mentorship - guiding team members’ professional development

One of the favorite aspects of my job is coaching and mentoring my team members and peers. I absolutely love guiding them through their professional development and am thoroughly committed to supporting them on this journey. Here’s my approach:

• Work with the team member to identify their strengths and areas for growth.

• Develop personalized development plans. Whether it is to excel in their existing role or to grow in different roles, I find that creating a personalized plan makes a world’s difference in the team member’s progress. The plans include a personal SWOT analysis, clearly defined and measurable goals, as well as personal objectives.

• Offer constructive feedback. We get better by identifying previous mistakes and learning from them.

5. Conflict resolution - resolving interpersonal issues

Conflicts are almost unavoidable in the workplace and how you approach them as manager can make all the difference in maintaining a healthy work environment and positive relationships between team members. Here’s a few tips on how to handle them:

• Address conflicts promptly - don’t postpone addressing the conflictual situation as time may make it worse

• Resolve conflicts fairly - always be fair and impartial when mediating disputes

• Be diplomatic and patient - approach the conflict with a level-headed attitude

• Be assertive when necessary. Some conflicts may arise from non-work-related issues (ex: heated political discussions that escalate and result in someone feeling offended). In such cases, don’t hesitate to remind all parties involved what are the behavioral expectations from them in the workplace and how inappropriate behavior can damage the team dynamics and is unwanted. Ultimately, the goal is to work well together, not for team members to be friends.

6. Continuous learning - developing your knowledge & refining your skills

I can’t stress enough how useful developing this skill is. After all, you’re not only responsible for your own success, but also for the well-being of your team. Continuously improving your abilities will make you better at in your role but also a better leader. Obviously there’s an abundance of resources out there - books, workshops, trainings. As someone who’s a practical learner, here’s how I approach my own development:

• Be curious. Take a look at existing processes and see if they can be improved for better results. Analyze existing data and information and look for insights that can inform your decision making. For example, as a support manager, I like to collate various data points and find patterns and trends. What is the satisfaction of users who asked support for each specific issues? Why do users who asked for assistance with issue X have a higher satisfaction score than users who asked for help with issue Y? Is it because we have a lower resolution time for issue X or perhaps we have better documentation? Is there something that my support team can do to improve the satisfaction of users needing assistance with issue Y?

• Broaden your horizons. Learn about your organization’s industry and related topics. If you manage a support team, for example, don’t focus your learning only on support topics. Learn about customer patterns and trends, emerging competitors, new technologies.

• Stay committed. It’s easy to get caught in the day-to-day duties and neglect investing time in your own development. Whenever possible, set aside time each week to focus on your growth. Create your own personal development plan with short, medium, and long term goals.

Remember - the journey towards becoming a successful manager is ongoing. Embrace challenges and celebrate victories along the way.