Gain Management Skills
To be a manager, you must assume a multitude of responsibilities, including planning, organizing, leading, overseeing and executing tasks. Additionally, you must integrate the skills and cooperation of those you are responsible for managing into fulfilling all of your responsibilities. It is possible to learn how to be an effective manager in a variety of ways. Follow these steps to gain management skills.
Contents
Steps
- Familiarize yourself with the characteristics of a good manager. In order to be a manager, you will need to develop each of these areas:
- Effective communication skills involve expressing your points in a way that others can understand, as well as listening to others in a way that allows you an optimal understanding of what is being said.
- An aptitude for seeking and recognizing the truth is a necessary part of good management skills. That is because managers are in a position of power, and it is only natural that those working under you may sometimes tell you only what you want to hear.
- Empathy is necessary to understanding those you manage, as well as your customers.
- To be a manager, you must know how to use persuasion to affect outcomes both in the workplace and in the consumer market.
- Leadership is almost synonymous with management, and is an integral part of any management training program. To be a manager, you must be able to guide others in a way that brings out their best. You must also be able to absorb stress in a way to shield employees from responsibilities that are not theirs, so that you can show them, by example, how to handle tasks.
- Managers must be able to resolve issues in a way that has the least negative impact on coworkers and customers, and they must be able to accept responsibility for any problems that arise, without deflecting or transferring blame to others.
- Understand that there is a difference between managing people and managing a project, and that you are responsible for doing both.
- Organizational and administrative skills enable you to develop budgets, track payroll, monitor employee performance, develop business strategies and much more.
- Read books on management. Go to the library, or search the Internet, in order to find texts that can guide you on the principles and applications of management skills.
- Find a mentor. Develop a relationship with a manager that you respect and aspire to be like, and ask for advice and guidance. You may even opt to place an ad in the local or Internet classifieds section to recruit a mentor who can give you personalized management training.
- Volunteer to stand in as a project manager at your current job. Managing a specific project, as opposed to moving into a permanent supervisory position, is a great way to gain management skills while maintaining a safety net during the process.
- Take management training seminars. An online search for management seminars will return a multitude of both on-site and webinar-style management training seminars.
- Attend school to learn how to be a manager. You may pursue an associates, bachelors or masters degree in business management from any college or university that offers such a program.
Tips
- The American Management Association (AMA) website offers a wide array of free information to supplement and help guide your management training.
