17 Top Management Skills

Although it is impossible to pinpoint the one thing that sets apart a great manager from a mediocre one, there are clearly different skills, ideas and opinions that set apart effective leaders from ineffective ones.

The question that we get asked the most in our Management Training Courses for “What are the top skills that a manager should have?” Below are the 17 top management skills that you should add to your virtual toolbox in order to improve your leadership abilities.

Key Management Skills

1) Communication

The ability to speak coherently, voice your thoughts eloquently and interact with others in an effective manner.

2) Listening

The ability to actively listen to your colleagues and clients, hearing what they are saying and understanding their main points.

3) Non-verbal skills

Reading beyond the spoken word to gauge a person’s eye movements, posture, facial expression and rate of speech, and what they may mean.

4) Delegation

Breaking down comprehensive company goals in order to assign tasks to the employees that are best suited to complete them.

5) Emotional intelligence

Being empathetic, being able to read another party’s emotions and respond in an appropriate manner.

6) Transparency

Not keeping things from your team, but involving them in the department’s goals, issues and concerns.

7) Teamwork

Being able to recruit talented people and help employees work together in a positive and collaborative manner.

8) Problem resolution

Understanding that conflict is inevitable in the office, and can actually be positive if handled properly; knowing how to handle conflict and help employees overcome problematic situations.

9) Decision making

Not being afraid to make important decisions, and trusting yourself enough to make educated decisions in a short amount of time.

10) Presentation skills

Knowing how to share information with a group of people in an effective way, and knowing how to gauge their receptiveness and level of understanding.

11) Training

Being able to help employees learn new skills and concepts by training them in new areas.

12) Anger management

Keeping your cool and remaining level-headed in stressful situations.

13) Strategic thinking

Being able to think beyond today to develop strategies to keep the company growing and staying competitive.

14) Change management

Not being afraid of change, and being able to manage employees and operations to make sure the changes are successful.

15) Empowerment

Knowing your employees enough to understand what drives them to succeed, and implementing ways to help them do their best work.

16) Appreciation

Knowing how to show your gratitude to your staff members about their hard work to make them feel valued.

17) Employee retention

Developing strategies to keep your star players loyal and enticing them to stay with the company.

Top Manager Skills

How many of those management skills do you think you possess? Take a piece of paper and give yourself a score out of 10 with 10 being the best and 0 being the worst.

Think about the reasons behind your scores. Next, add 1 or 2 marks to the score that you got and think what you would need to do to reach that level.

So for example you gave yourself a score of 6 for change management; what would you need to do to make a score of 8 next time around?

What additional behaviours or skills would you need? Do you need to be consistent? Or is it just one element of change management that you’re struggling on.

The top managers are continuously improving their management and leadership skills and you should be no different.

Want to develop your management skills further?

Check out our Management Skills Training. We also offer a FREE Online Management Course that you can work through at your leisure.

If you’d like to benchmark your management skills then you can do so with our LeaderDNA Assessment. It’s FREE to take and you will receive a 25 page personalised report with your strengths and weaknesses as a manager. Benchmark yourself against 96 key management skills!

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

MTD Training