Fast Company published an article last week detailing what makes a person “management material.”
After consulting a number of experts, they came up with these 6 traits:
- You’re good at building relationships. “You cannot be a leader unless people are willing to follow you…To have followers, you need to be skilled at developing and maintaining relationships.”
- You’re approachable. “Employees of approachable bosses are less likely to quit and more likely to engage in “above-and-beyond” behavior at work…If you’re approachable you’ll be a successful leader. If you’re unapproachable over the long run you will fail.”
- You look at the big picture. “To manage, you need to be able to see the big picture; how pieces of the organization fit together, and how a change in one area will affect another.”
- You think strategically. “You should understand the environment inside and outside of the organization…You need skills in problem identification and analysis, and must be able to generate and evaluate solutions.”
- You can check your ego at the door. “Focusing on leaving behind a better team than you found is important, but the leader needs to be comfortable with letting other people shine for this to work.”
- You have a proven track record of results. “When credibility, competence, and aspiration are all evident, the odds of the person successfully transitioning from an individual contributor into a management are greatly increased.”
We’ll let you guess which piece of advice was ours.
Do you have anything to add to this list? Or tips to help people develop these qualities? We’d love for you to share them with us!
