Management Skills Required to Become a Successful Manager

Great managers aren’t born, they are made! So, how to become a successful manager? The answer is simple - by acquiring essential managerial skills. Being a manager is more than just delegating tasks to the team, but driving them together for organizational success. It’s about inspiring them to give their best while resolving their conflicts and fostering open communication. 

According to research, good managers influence up to 70% of the employee engagement levels in the company, hinting at the fact that good leadership can make workers more committed and productive. Learning top management skills is not just good for the company but for personal career growth as well. 

So, let us dig deeper to understand the essential management skills required to become a successful manager, how to apply them, and what challenges can arise to implement them. 

Top 10 Management Skills You Need to Become a Successful Manager

To excel as a manager, one needs to master various skills, be it leading, communicating, planning, or negotiating. All these are often taught in an online management course. Listed below are the top 10 management skills required to become a successful Manager:

1. Leadership Skills

According to research, managers who exhibit great leadership skills can help boost the business by up to 23% with a highly engaged and productive team. A person who knows how to inspire and motivate others by setting the right tone and examples will turn out to be a good manager. 

So, one of the first skills required to become a successful manager is leadership skill. A good manager is a good leader who guides the team towards a common goal and gives credit to those who deserve it. 

2. Good Communication Skills

Do you know that according to a survey, nearly  86% of employees believe that lack of effective communication was the reason for workplace failure? Clear and effective communication is the key to success for any business. To be able to manage the team and exchange information, a manager must excel in good communication skills. 

He or she must articulate goals, expectations, and feedback effectively to ensure that the team understands their roles and responsibilities. This can be possible only with strong communication skills. 

3. Organization Skills

The reason why companies hire managers is because they want an expert to organize everything in their business. So, the next top skill required to become a successful manager is organizational skills. It is the ability to handle multiple tasks with good organization. 

As a manager, one must be able to organize meetings, tasks, excel reports, projects, presentations, and the team. Not only this but as part of organizational skills, a good manager excels in time management skills to optimize workflow and prevent unnecessary delays. 

4. Conflict Resolve Ability

Working as a manager in a company can sometimes be no less than playing the role of a referee because conflicts are common in any workplace. So, one of the key skills to learn to become a successful manager is conflict resolution ability to promote a positive work environment. 

It is the prime role of a manager to not escalate disputes and disagreements within the team. So, a manager must be able to address the issues promptly and fairly to minimize the chances of disruption in team dynamics. 

5. Visionary Thinking

If you want to become a successful manager, then do not underestimate the power of visionary thinking. It is the ability to see beyond the present and make decisions now that will ensure a bright future for the company.  

Visionary thinking is part of good leadership skills that help an organization stay ahead of the competition with sustainable growth. A well-defined vision of a manager also serves as a guiding framework for prioritizing initiatives and allocating resources effectively.

6. Decision-Making Skills

According to a report, the top 15% of leading companies around the world are the ones that are strong in the decision-making process. So, taking the clue from here, Managers who know how to make decisions can easily drive the company toward innovation and success. 

This is because one of the major roles played by a manager is making decisions based on relevant information and proper risk assessment. 

7. Smart Negotiation Skills

When one aims to learn management skills, one must also pay attention to smart negotiation skills. To become a successful manager, it is not just important to think differently and make the right decisions, but also to negotiate smartly to be able to navigate the complexities of business interactions. 

These skills can help settle agreements in a way that all the parties involved are satisfied. Believe it or not, managers equipped with these skills are better positioned to achieve favorable outcomes and boost their organizational performance. 

8. Strategic Planning Skills

The roadmap to an organization’s success goes through strategic planning. As a manager, one must have good strategic planning skills to manage the budget, team, and task. Proper planning is also essential to coordinate work and accelerate a task’s execution. 

A well-structured strategic plan made by a manager allows organizations to analyze the market trends and understand the competitors, leading to innovative solutions for the ultimate success of the company. 

9. Analytical Skills

The list of 10 important management skills will be incomplete if we do not talk about analytical thinking skills. Based on these skills, a person can make informed decisions and solve problems even in the most complex business situations. 

A manager who has sharp analytical skills can interpret data and identify the latest trends. In short, analytical skills empower managers to approach challenges methodically by breaking down problems into manageable components to develop practical solutions. 

10. Employee Development Skills

According to research, companies that paid attention to employee engagement have experienced a 21% increase in profitability and a 17% boost in productivity. This can be achieved by focusing on employee development skills. 

A manager who prioritizes employee growth fosters a motivated workforce, leading to higher productivity and job satisfaction will be successful. A great manager is one who not only leads but also empowers their team, helping individuals reach their full potential while driving the company toward long-term success.

Also Read: 14 Essential Business Management Skills to Learn in 2025

How to Use These 10 Management Skills as a Manager? 

We understand that merely mentioning the top 10 management skills you need to become a good manager isn’t enough. So, if you are interested in using the above-mentioned management skills as a Manager, check out the table below:

Also Read: Negotiation Skills: Definition, Process, Various Stages, and Benefits

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Common Challenges Faced in Acquiring These Skills

It is always easier said than done! So is the case when one tries to acquire the top management skills to become a successful manager. This is because managers often oversee some aspects of the business that employees hardly see. 

It is, therefore, quite obvious that as a manager one may experience some challenges in using the management skills we just talked about in the earlier part. Let us identify some such common challenges faced in acquiring management skills:

1. Fostering Teamwork: One of the biggest challenges faced by managers is building a cohesive team, that comprises individuals with different personalities and working styles. It sometimes becomes difficult to strike a cord of collaboration between them while leading a team.
2. Promoting the Company’s Mission: Managers are like the second boss of a company, who want to take the company to new heights and somehow they often experience difficulty in instilling the common organizational goal in the team. This is even harder if employees are working in hybrid mode or remotely.
3. Mentoring Employees: We discussed that a manager must learn employee development skills to improve employee engagement and productivity. However, a big hurdle in this way is devoting sufficient time and ability to recognize the individual member’s strengths and weaknesses because the manager is already juggling multiple responsibilities. 
4. Dealing with Uncertainty: Uncertainties are a part and parcel of any business. No matter how well one gets trained with the best management skills, it may become difficult to navigate uncertainties. This can lead to delayed or wrong decisions and put the entire business at risk. 
5. Handling Conflicts Among Team Members: A manager must also learn conflict resolution ability, which can be really tricky. A big challenge in implementing this skill is to be able to mediate effectively based on emotional intelligence without any bias to ensure a fair outcome is fixed for all the parties involved. 

Similar Reads: 11 Essential Factors for Success and Overcoming Challenges in Management

How to Upgrade Your Management Skills with upGrad?

If you are keen to upgrade your management skills then join hands with upGrad, a trusted online platform offering 200+ industry-relevant courses designed to help ambitious professionals build top management skills. Enrol in an online management course from the best universities and institutions through the upGrad platform to receive a world-class education with unmatched flexibility and affordability. 

Develop practical skills through management classes, case studies, and live sessions; learn leadership skills and decision-making processes under the guidance of expert faculty from the top 1% of universities worldwide by choosing a management course through upGrad. 

Here are some relevant ones you can check out:

• MBA – O.P. Jindal Global University
• MBA from O.P. Jindal Global University-Career Acceleration Program
• Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management from Duke CE
• Human Resource Analytics Course from IIM-K
• Post Graduate Diploma in Management (BIMTECH)

You can also get personalized career counseling with upGrad to guide your career path by choosing the right management course.

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Reference Links:
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231593/why-great-managers-rare.aspx
https://zengerfolkman.com/leadership-studies/ 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklarson/2023/03/24/new-research-finds-only-15-percent-of-companies-are-decision-leaders--heres-how-the-rest-can-catch-up/ 
https://blog.clearcompany.com/7-workplace-collaboration-statistics-that-will-have-you-knocking-down-cubicles
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https://www.upgrad.com/blog/importance-of-management-in-every-organisation-a-complete-guide/ 
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