Are You A Management Candidate?
Five Important Traits Companies Look For in a Management Candidate
Hard work, dedication, and job skills are all important when it comes to a successful management candidate, but companies look for other specific traits as well. After all, businesses will not pay to have a supervisor unless they can gain significantly from it. The right person for the job needs to be able to keep everyone working together to maximise profits while keeping the workplace as stress free as possible
Motivation and Connection
Management needs to keep everyone working towards a common goal and build on the strength of the team. This requires the chosen candidate to possess excellent communication and people skills. You need to foster and encourage good workplace relationships by being friendly and giving respect to the entire team regardless of your personal opinion.
Recognising the different personalities and learning how to deal with them is a huge portion of connecting and relating to other people. When you become a manager, these skills allow you to lead the others successfully because they understand that you are working with them rather than standing over them and demanding.
Patience and Understanding
When you spend large amounts of time working directly with others, conflicts and mistakes are bound to arise. On the bright side, they can be powerful learning tools for both the leader and the team. Candidates need to possess the ability to sort things out and arrive at a positive outcome even if it only involves learning from the experience. This skill can be difficult to demonstrate when you are an employee. This makes it extremely important to show when you are dealing with instances that you are directly involved in.
Some new managers often attempt to ignore problems or use excuses to get out of the hot seat when things go wrong. Team leaders have no excuse; it is their responsibility to find out and deal with problems in an efficient manner, so if they didn’t know about the problem, it is still their fault. Therefore, the successful candidate needs to be able to take responsibility for the errors and problems that occur. To show this ability to the company, go the extra mile to help right the wrongs and don’t be afraid to step in when it is appropriate to do so.
Managers need to handle a lot of pressure and be able to deal with changes quickly and effectively. If you want to be a manager, show that you can think quickly and creatively to incorporate the changes into a project and that you are not easily flustered.
Confidence and Decisiveness
Regardless of which industry or business you work in, upper management and those working under you need to feel that you can perform your tasks successfully. People simply cannot trust or follow someone they feel is unable to lead them properly. The only way to ensure others have confidence in you is to show you have confidence in yourself and your skills to begin with.
A large portion of being confident is making wise decisions only when you have all of the information and not changing your mind consistently. Uncertainty is a large warning sign that you doubt yourself. Keep in mind, however, that this doesn’t involve knowing everything, but rather asking for help when you need it.
Presence and Attitude
Everyone has a bad day on occasion, but no one wants to work with someone who is grumpy and negative all of the time. When it comes to a manager, this is especially important because you are representing the company directly. Having everyone become miserable and threaten to quit isn’t very good for the company’s future either.
Because their role is to direct others and be in control of the team’s direction, being able to demonstrate authority and get the attention of the team is a must. You don’t want to seem domineering, but being a wallflower isn’t going to work either. With good work relationships and solid person skills, this trait should come out naturally.
Honesty and Integrity
The most important traits sought after in a successful management candidate is honesty and integrity. Without these traits combined, none of the other qualities are possible to achieve. Employers and workers need to know they can trust you and that they can rely on you to tell the truth.
Admitting when you are wrong or have made mistakes not only shows you are human, but it also demonstrates that you will take responsibility for mistakes and are eager to learn from them. This indicates to your employer that you are willing to work towards improving your quality as well as yourself.
To be a successful management candidate, you not only need to possess these five traits, but to demonstrate them to others effectively. It is always a good idea to work on them from your first day on the job, but if you’ve held your position for a while, take the time to examine each trait closely and work on one at a time. These skills are not impossible to acquire, but they do take a lot of work and time to get there and will be invaluable for inclusion on your executive CV when applying for senior roles in the future.
