What are the key managerial skills to be a good manager?

Any good manager must have natural aptitudes such as availability, listening skills, respect and tolerance, but also managerial skills. The latter are abilities that can be acquired naturally, but also through training or professional experience. What exactly is a managerial skill? What are the skills of good managers? How to develop these skills? We tell you everything.

Short courses

What is a managerial skill?

Managerial skills are essential skills for any person whose mission is to manage a team. These skills are varied and determine the manager's ability to lead his employees, to manage the human dimension, to mobilize the technical skills of each person and to put them to good use for the company, or to make the right decisions.

What are the different types of managerial skills?

Becoming a manager cannot be improvised. This profession requires the possession or acquisition of different types of managerial skills. These can be technical or relational.
 

Hard skills or technical skills

Technical skills, or hard skills, are technical knowledge, professional know-how. For example, it can be the mastery of the functioning of a software, a tool or a machine. It can also be commercial knowledge that allows you to sell a product or to promote your company. Hard skills are generally acquired in school, in training or through the manager's various professional experiences.
 

Soft skills or emotional skills

Emotional skills are human skills. They characterize the manager's ability to communicate, work with his or her peers and exchange information effectively. These skills allow the manager to bring together the skills of each person in order to put them at the service of the company and achieve the objectives set. Soft skills are generally acquired through professional and extra-professional experiences. Note that, despite appearances, it is quite possible to develop emotional skills as well as technical skills through training.

List of key managerial competencies

There are many skills, but some people agree that certain skills are key to leading a team. We present them to you.
 

Technical expertise

The manager must be an expert in his or her field to be credible in the eyes of his or her employees and to support them effectively. His knowledge must be solid enough for him to be the reference for his team members. Technical expertise can be linked to a tool, a project or a product. The manager must continuously train (internal training or short courses) to keep his knowledge up to date.

Operational management training

The leadership

Leadership is the ability to lead a team, federate, coach and mobilize. Leadership involves being proactive, inspiring, setting an example, taking initiatives and making decisions. Leadership can be innate or acquired during a face-to-face management training or a distance management training.
 

Analytical and decision making skills

Any good manager must be able to adopt a strategic vision in the short and long term. They must have excellent analytical skills and be able to make the right decisions (sometimes in a hurry or in the face of unexpected conflict). The manager must be able to keep a cool head in a crisis situation or when a project does not go as planned.
 

Knowing how to delegate

The ability to delegate is part of the fundamentals of team management. Managing a team does not mean doing all the work, quite the contrary. The role of the manager is to rely on the skills of each person and to distribute the tasks. He or she must mobilize the individual and collective skills of each employee in order to manage the company's projects effectively.
 

Know how to plan

Knowing how to plan is one of the major managerial challenges. The manager must be able to take charge of the management of a project and to plan the organization of the work (management of resources, budget, time...) to be done. He can, for example, set SMART objectives, use time management tools, draw up an action plan over a given period of time, etc. Of course, managing unforeseen events (untenable deadlines, budget problems that prevent the project from being carried out properly) is one of the essential managerial skills.
 

An emotional intelligence

Finally, managers must have good emotional intelligence. Developing a team's performance requires understanding and respect for each individual. Managers must be able to deal with the varied personalities of their team members, to communicate, to take a step back from certain behaviors and to manage conflicts between employees. They must also be able to carry out coaching, to encourage collective intelligence or to give the necessary levers to their employees so that they can increase their skills.

How to develop your managerial skills?

You've got it: becoming a competent new manager is no easy task. You want to acquire managerial skills to perform as a manager? IPAG offers many training courses that allow you to work on both hard and soft skills. Thanks to them, you will be able, in a few days or over a longer period of time, to learn to delegate, to communicate better or to gain in leadership. Some of our training courses can also enable you to acquire very specific and essential skills in today's business world (for example, operational management training or diversity management training). Are you interested? Find out more about our management training courses.