Five soft skills that every manager should improve
When the head of the company wants to build an effective team, he needs to be able to interact with people and find a common language with them. Soft skills can be purposefully developed. Here are five soft skills that you should pump in yourself. Read How to tell a child what soft skills are.
A responsibility
The question “Who is to blame?” is not even a statement that the fault lies with someone else. By asking this question, a person fences himself off from the situation and tries to maintain his status. It isn’t an efficient problem-solving method.
Accepting responsibility means acknowledging your direct relationship with events. Understand what happened and how you can fix it. Don’t try to “take the blame.” Don’t think you are the cause of all problems.
From a position of responsibility, it does not matter who is right or wrong. All you have to do is honestly acknowledge what actions led to that outcome. With this information, you can work further.
When a manager takes responsibility, he acts as a role model for the team and shows that this is the right thing to do. Most often, employees also develop this soft skill.
If the leader shifts responsibility to others, his team loses a sense of security, loses motivation, and stops working at total capacity.
Ability to accept other people’s points of view
This soft skill indicates a strong person who considers the interlocutor a partner — but accepting other people’s points of view and agreeing with them are not always the same. Strength lies in the ability to hear the opinions of others.
Most often, people are offended by the unwillingness of the other side to accept their point of view. Allow the interlocutor to express his thought — this is how you create the conditions for a constructive conversation. Recognition and respect for other people’s points of view make it easier for us to negotiate.
Teamwork skills
Often, people fear their opinion will be crushed when making a collective decision. Therefore, the company should establish a rule: the team’s priorities are more important than the priorities of individual employees and departments.
It is crucial to analyze how decisions are made in your company. Many managers do it in an authoritarian way, which demotivates executive employees. The correct approach is different — you must come to a consensus and make decisions considering different departments’ points of view. Responsibility, respect, and flexibility should be shown simultaneously about different opinions. The common goal should be above the personal one — this is the most important thing for modern teams.
Some companies use a democratic way of making decisions. But he is the most unreliable because, in the end, no one is responsible. It is much more correct when the head of the company decides after listening to the heads of all departments (who, in turn, rely on the opinions of their team members). Each middle manager at his level analyzes employees’ points of view and determines the best next steps.
Gratitude and gratitude
It’s not just about financial incentives. Gratitude is both words and what people feel when communicating with you.
If you don’t recognize employees’ achievements, they see it and fulfill minimum requirements. Gratitude is the primary motivation to do your job well. It doesn’t mean you should applaud employees for correctly performing every task. In most cases, a sincere “thank you” is sufficient.
Gratitude and appreciation are separate from an ultimatum management style. Threatening employees with consequences for their inaction is unproductive. It is better to motivate them with stories about what they can achieve.
The ability to put yourself in the place of another and recognize the right to make mistakes
Before choosing a management style, put yourself in your employee’s place — how would you like to communicate with the leader? Surely you will be more comfortable with an understanding and supportive person, and not with a tyrant. First of all, it concerns reactions to an error.
Once, at the Formula 1 race, a mechanic of one of the teams at the pit stop did not tighten the bolt: the wheel fell off before leaving the main road. After the race, the team’s representative, answering the journalists’ question about the punishment of the guilty, said: “We can fire him, but now he is the most experienced person in our team — he is unlikely to want to make such a mistake again.”
If the leader punishes for every mistake, the team ceases to exist. At best, people quit. At worst, they stop looking for the best solutions and perform a minimum of tasks. The motivation of such employees is zero. In a critical situation, they will only make some effort to solve the problem.
Mistakes are experiences. An employee who knows five ways that work and ten that fail is better for the business than someone who only knows five win-win options. By depriving your team of the opportunity to make mistakes, you do not allow it to develop (and your business).
Read: Motivation and self-organization: why is managing your condition the primary soft skill?
The test Menteora will show which soft skills you have developed and which are worth working on.