Are you ready to be a manager? The non-negotiable skills

It has been a few days now that I have been pondering about this question. When do we know someone is ready to be a manager? When does your manager know you are ready? When do YOU know you are ready?

And should you know you are ready before you get the position?

The only thing that is certain around this topic is that there are as many opinions as there are brains in the world. Not only human…

To solve this mystery, I invite you to do an exercise with me.

1. First, let’s talk about your experience. What did the best and worst managers in your life do?

Take a sheet of paper and draw a line in the middle. On the left — add the behaviours of the worst manager(s) you can think of. On the right (you got it!) — list the behaviours of the greatest leaders you have ever seen and heard of.

When I think about this exercise, I am lucky to have more examples of great managers than the opposite. The "best manager" list combines the behaviours of my first and last managers. In the “worst manager”, I thought about an early internship and added some insights from the stories I have heard over the years.

Your list might be different than mine. What made impression on you will largely depend on your context, values and specific experiences. Even so, I am confident we will end up with a similar list of non negotiable skills in the end. Let’s continue.

2. What the literature has to say

The two images below show the skills discussed in the HBR Manager’s Handbook and Armstrong’s Handbook of Management and Leadership. I am sure you have heard about those publishers before and both you and I trust their credibility.

With that in mind, the second exercise is:

→ Look at the behaviours of the worst manager you listed in exercise 1.

→ For each behaviour, add which skills should this person develop to get closer to the "best manager" situation.

In my example, this would result in the following mix&match:

Your observant eye has already seen that there are some common themes:

→ Communication
→ Developing trust
→ Delegating
→ Self awareness

This is how my list of non-negotiable skills of a great manager looks like. I bet Your list isn't that far from the example.

3. What the world thinks

To get exhaustive in this discovery, I asked the members of a Leadership Community about their opinion on the non-negotiable manager assets. This created a reasonably heated discussion from the start — is it skills or attitude that is more important?

Which is a fair point.

Still, the discussion revolved around what each person has seen as the best leaders in their own world (side note— this is a community of leaders so we can safely assume they have relevant experience).

What got most attention were the following areas:

→ Effective communication was unanimously approved.

→ Others before you: enjoy helping others, or being outside of your selfish mind.

→ Drive for results to have business acumen and achieve the objectives.

→ Understanding the role — and still wanting it.

→ Self-awareness to be able to develop the rest.

In recap, if you have the following keys to success, you are ready to get to the next step.

Skill: Communication.

You can develop clear & effective communication in any job, position or area of expertise. Since it appeared in each of the three steps in our discovery, it makes it to the top of our final “personal possessions” for soon-to-be managers.

Motivation: Why do you want to become a manager?

Do you clearly understand what it entails? Can you visualise how your days will change? As someone said in the online community “Leadership comes with a trippy combination of privilege and sacrifice.”

Attitude: Others before you.

You go to a client meeting with one of your team members. The conversation goes off track, you lose the client because your team member hasn’t prepared properly. When you explain the situation to your manager, do you put the blame on your report or do you share the responsibility and already have a plan on how to improve the skills of your team member? If it’s the latter, you are in the good direction.

Management is not just a title, it’s a discipline. If you have the three keys: effective communication, stable motivation, and the right attitude, you are good to go.

Ask for this promotion.