As you advance in your career, gain experience and grow your professional abilities, you might consider taking on management opportunities.

Management roles often include the responsibility of managing projects, leading a team of people or a combination of both. When an employer promotes or hires you for a management position, they trust you to make important decisions and help build and execute plans that will affect company outcomes. Developing a set of managerial skills can help you be successful in these responsibilities.

Whether you’re preparing for future leadership roles or you’re a manager seeking to grow and improve your abilities, the following background information, tips and examples of managerial skills can help.

What are managerial skills?

There are two types of skills you need to excel in your career: hard skills and soft skills. To be a successful manager, you need to develop both.

Hard skills are technical, teachable abilities you learn through school, training and job experience. For example, if you’re a software engineer, one of your hard skills may be proficiency in programming languages. As a manager, it’s important to develop these abilities so you can effectively lead others in honing the same skills.

On the other hand, soft skills are applicable in any role or industry and are often even more important for management than technical proficiencies. Generally, soft skills are developed over time by managing your responsibilities and interacting with others. Problem-solving, time management and verbal communication are all examples of important soft skills.

While hard skills are key when completing specific tasks, soft skills are essential when directing people, overseeing projects and making informed decisions.

Four sets of important management skills

The most effective management skills you should develop, regardless of your department or industry, can be grouped into four primary categories: leadership skills, planning and strategy skills, communication skills and organizational skills.

Here is a breakdown of each category with several examples.

1. Leadership skills

As a manager, you will likely be responsible for overseeing the work of others and motivating a team toward a common goal. You might also be responsible for leading meetings, assigning workloads and supporting collaboration across teams and departments. Well-developed leadership skills will help you coordinate tasks and direct all parties to ensure work is completed according to plan and finished on time.

These are also the skills you’ll need to adequately handle leadership duties such as employee evaluations and professional development.

Leadership skills examples:

• Decisiveness
• Dependability
• Conflict-resolution
• Constructive criticism
• Delegating tasks
• Empathy
• Empowerment
• Integrity
• Mentoring
• Motivating
• Patience
• Relationship management
• Task delegation
• Team building

Whether you’re managing people, projects or a combination of the two, the ability to prepare a vision for the future and strategize solutions is essential to good management. Planning skills help when setting goals and determining the most efficient path to meet objectives. A strategic manager is someone who can spot inefficiencies and quickly identify solutions to challenges. They can also recognize the steps each team member should take to overcome obstacles and complete projects.

Planning and strategy skills examples:

• Adaptability
• Brainstorming
• Business development
• Conflict resolution
• Critical thinking
• Decision-making
• Flexibility
• Logical thinking
• Problem-solving
• Strategic thinking

To effectively lead people and projects, you must be able to understand the needs and goals of the business and convey this information to others through simple and straightforward instruction. Well-developed communication skills will ensure you’re able to translate the most accurate information to the right people at the right time. Great communicators actively listen, retain information well and pass it on efficiently to others.

Communication skills examples:

• Active listening
• Building relationships
• Collaboration
• Interpersonal communication
• Interviewing
• Negotiation
• Persuasion
• Public speaking
• Verbal communication
• Written communication

As a manager, you’ll have to balance many tasks at the same time. Often, this means overseeing multiple project timelines, deadlines and calendar events such as meetings, conferences and presentations. Excellent organizational skills will help you stay on top of your work, reduce stress, prevent you and your team from missing critical dates and ensure you can find information when you need it most. Staying organized will improve your workflow and ensure you’re able to complete tasks as efficiently as possible. It will also set a great example for any employees who may report to you.

Organizational skills examples:

• Deadline management
• Event coordination
• Filing
• Goal setting
• Office management
• Project management
• Recordkeeping
• Scheduling
• Time management