Managing
- Home
- Skills & Tools
- Managing
Managing refers to the ability to control, take care of, and make decisions about something, be it an idea, project, a team of people, time, or money.
In a business and workplace context, managing is the ability of an individual to lead his subordinates and make important business decisions. There is a set of several other skills that an individual must develop in order to be good at managing. These include the ability to effectively communicate, direct, supervise, negotiate, motivate, make decisions, implement strategies, and many more.
Why is managing important
Managing is an important skill to possess because there is nothing that can help a team, department, or company succeed like a good manager. An individual with exceptional managing skills is courageous, decisive, trustworthy, and self-confident who can drive their companies even through the most crucial periods of transformation.
Mastering the skills of managing may require the development of many other skills as a prerequisite but it also helps in improving several other important skills such as time management, employee management, and business planning etc. Since managing encompasses the ability to take care of time, managers are better able to evaluate and prioritize tasks according to their importance and relevance, thus, managing time better.
Their ability to make important decisions improves their business planning abilities and similarly, their ability to control, direct, and supervise enables the improvement of employee management skills. Therefore, it is safe to say that ‘managing’ as a skill can nurture several other skills in a person.
How to improve your skills of managing
The following helpful tips will improve your skills of managing:
- Criticize your subordinates but without being critical. Making corrections is important but you must learn to do it respectfully. Pointing out their errors is your job but make sure to identify that fine line between providing criticism and showing a critical attitude. So, let them know next time they miss the mark but do it politely and provide some guidance on how to improve.
- Give your people a place or thing to work towards. A job with no incentives or promotion to work towards is usually considered a dead-end, making the workers unhappy, unproductive and bored. Organize your department in a manner such that it offers the subordinates a logical progression up the ladder. Whether it is recognition, added authority and responsibility, or monetary rewards that you offer, they must be tempting enough for your people to put forth their best performance.
- Do not let failure discourage them. Punishing your people for mistakes is no more the formula for success. You must understand that the best way to learn is through experience. Every time you fail, you learn something new. This approach, however, should be used where the tasks or projects are trivial as compared to the experience which is more valuable. This tip is helpful in better management of all; people, project as well as time. It prevents the same mistakes from occurring on a larger scale and causing larger troubles and costs.
