Ask Christa! What Are the Top Skills of Effective Managers? (S2E23)

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today’s listener question is a question that every business school asks of all its first-year MBA students: “What are the Top Skills of Effective Managers?”

What and Who is a Manager?

First, let’s talk about what and who a manager is. I want all of us to think of a manager as anyone who has direct OR indirect reports—meaning, either they report to you on a formal org chart OR they report to you because of a project. This is important because in many matrix structures, the organization has formal management lines where employees have a boss who oversees the formal aspects of management: hiring, performance and development, performance improvement plans, and terminations such as firings with cause or a lay off. But they also have a project or program manager who oversees the day to day tasks, activities, and deliverables associated with a project... or... program, and they are managing employees, too.

Check out episode 19 to learn more about organizational structures such as functional and matrixed reporting lines.

It's important to think about managers as having ultimate accountability for what employees deliver: the quality of the deliverable, the timing, the scope and what was intended, and I make this distinction because whether someone technically reports to you or not—meaning whether you are in charge of someone’s employment status—the act of managing people, and the role of being a manager, is about the same whether it’s a dotted line or solid line employee.

Although some would argue, and I’m one of them, that being a solid-lined boss where employees technically report to you even if they are dispersed across the company in various projects tends to be easier in terms of motivation when you’re the one in charge of raises and promotions. And keep in mind, raises and promotions are just one aspect of what it takes to motivate your employees, but they are important aspects. That said, in matrixed organizations, even formal bosses—or solid line managers—ask for a lot of inputs when setting up for a raise or a promotion… or the other side of that, a performance improvement plan or a termination with cause.

And some would argue, and I’m one of them, that being a dotted-line manager where employees are on loan to you for specific work that will be done in your project—and likely in others’ projects, too—tends to be harder in terms of motivation because of how many priorities the employees have. You aren’t the only project they are on, and you are but one input of many others as to whether someone may receive a promotion or a raise, and while you may contribute to the decision to put an employee on a performance improvement plan, you are still but one input of many others. This is when the aspects of effective managers from an interpersonal dynamic and influence perspective really matters.

It's harder to manage the work of employees in a matrixed environment, especially if your team members are on various other project while also working on yours.

Average Management is Hard; Effective Management is Harder

My point? Management is hard. You’re working with good humans, and sometimes not so good humans, and most of the time you also still have your own work to do, too. 

There are a lot of books and articles and research that talks about the skills of the most effective managers—usually related to communication (which is not just speaking but LISTENING!), negotiating conflict, managing your own emotions like a pro, learning what’s required from an employment law perspective specific to your team, how to develop and guide performance, how to enable corrections and have important conversations while keeping your team motivated. The list goes on and on. And, it changes with time, too. What you needed to be an effective manager in 1925 is different from what is needed to be an effective manager in 2025.

So I’m going to answer this question while focused on baseline skills, and my answer may surprise you.

Top Skills of Effective Managers (this may surprise you)

The number one skill I've seen in the most effective managers always makes the top five in any list, and it’s supported by research, is self-awareness. But while most talk about it in the context of emotional intelligence, I’m going to talk about it in the context of learning and knowing how you learn best. That is a part of self-awareness that most never think about, yet if you don’t start here, there isn’t too much you can do to become an effective, or a more effective, manager.

When you know how you learn, you know what you need, and that will make learning new things more enjoyable. It also makes the learning stick. For example, if you know you’re the type of learner who needs to learn with your hands or in the moment—experientially—you’re going to want to learn some management techniques then immediately apply and practice them in role-playing situations and BEFORE you have to apply the same techniques in the real world with your employees. You may instead be more theoretical in your approach to learning where you can absorb a lot of information on your own. With a more independent pace of learning, when you get to the role-playing to practice what you’ve learned, it’s more about practicing and ironing out the wrinkles.

Overall, I list self-awareness in the context of learning at the top of the list because effective management isn’t just about impulse control, emotional regulation, and connecting with others. Managers who do well focus on personal growth. They are open to learning new things, willing to learn the many skills it takes to be an effective manager, have flexible thinking, are open to feedback and coaching, and are ready for the commitment of being a manager. They connect with their team and develop a “spidey sense” when something is wrong—feels wrong—even if the team isn’t bringing it up. They WORK at learning the various skills needed to be effective and practice them all day long—and those are likely the skills you all thought of on your own when you heard the question about effective management skills.

The second most important skill is knowing how to apply what you have learned. And yes, this is a skill. It’s also why a lot of management training does work: you put adults in a room to learn all kinds of techniques related to effective management, then send them back to work… but… applying what you learned in a classroom—even if there is role play—is not the same as effectively applying it in the real world, in the moment when you need the skills. Those who love learning often seek opportunities to apply what they’ve learned and continue learning, practicing, and refining, but the majority of people aren’t build that way. It requires practice to build the skill of applying what you’ve learned toward real world scenarios.

After that? Applying what you have learned in the context of each good human in your team while maintaining perspective of the bigger picture. This is a flex for sure. 

Who on the team needs a more direct approach versus a slower approach for corrections? Who need some confidence building after having a terrible boss before you? Who thinks they are much farther ahead in their skills than they are and tends to take over versus someone who thinks they are much farther ahead in their skills than they are and sits back to let others do the work? Same issue, but two different people—how will you handle it? And how will you handle it within the bigger picture of what’s happening in your department or organization?

When you're working with good humans and you're trying to get the most out of them, truly the most important thing you bring to the table is your ability to connect with them—for sure. And so it’s not just about knowing how you learn and then how to apply the learning, but how you’ll deepen your connection with the individuals on your team AND within the context of your team as a result of what you have learned. This is the last part I just mentioned.

Management isn’t an easy role, especially if you want to be effective, and the top skills aren’t the ones you usually think about—the surface skills that anyone and everyone should be effective at, like listening and speaking, engaging others, giving feedback, etc.

You should have plenty of help as a manager, either with your own manager, with HR, with a learning and development team, but also by diving into a variety of resources you can find anywhere and everywhere these days. 

Additional Resources – Research

For this episode, I’ve mixed some of the resources to be management resources and some research. As always, you’ll find these additional resources in the show notes.

First, some research about what makes effective managers effective. Here you can read about specific skills; but keep in mind that none of this will matter if you don’t know how you learn, don’t know how to apply what you’ve just learned, and don’t know how to apply it at a granular level specific to each employee’s needs. By the way—this isn’t about burning yourself out trying to please or coddle your employees; it’s simply acknowledging that you’ll be more effective as a manager if you tailor some of your management skills and approaches to the individuals in your team.

I’ve included a Harvard Business Review article from 2005 that still holds true. It’s written by Marcus Buckingham, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s one of the authors of First Break All The Rules, which I talked about in Episode 19 answering the listener question, “Does Management Training Matter?” The article is called, “What great managers do,” and again—it’s aged well, barely looking it’s 20 year status.

It goes into depth about the characteristics, skills, and practices of great managers and offers anecdotes to make it real. And… it’s based on some of the best research ever conducted about management, studied from the perspective of employees. 

In addition, I included an article from The Harvard Gazette published in August 2024 and written by staff writer Liz Mineo. The article is called, “You want to be boss. You probably won’t be good at it.” It’s not the downer it sounds like; taking from the writer’s research, it explores predictive measures that pinpoint skills leading to effective managers. Much of it has to do with how someone is able to relate to others, but it also has to do with how well someone can allocate resources, and in order to do that, you have to understand the work AND understand your people.

I also included a peer-reviewed paper based on a study that aimed to produce, as they state, “a comprehensive definition, conceptual model, and … validated scale to measure managerial interpersonal skills {MIPS].” The paper is called, “The Good Manager: Development and Validation of the Managerial Interpersonal Skills Scale,” and it was published in 2021.

If you’re feeling intellectually ambitious about top skills of effective managers, read the Abstract and the Introduction. I’d skim through the Theoretical Background and the MIPS Construct section—more for perspective than anything else. It’s important to understand the reasons behind this research and the gaps in literature it’s aiming to fill, but that much literature might not be your cup of tea… hence, my recommendation to skim it.

If you’re interested in learning more about Managerial Interpersonal Skills overall, read the section titled The Managerial Role and Managerial Interpersonal Skills. As part of the literature review, you will see a lot of cited papers that will give you an appreciation of how much research is available and how much management skills has been studied. The authors of this paper set out to codify the interpersonal skills in management so as to streamline such research and measure the skills more effectively.

You can certainly review all the methods and the four studies as well as the way in which the researchers established the scales, but I’d move down to the Overall Discussion to get the gist and sum up. For those aspiring to promote into management roles or who are in current management roles, this paper enables you to see a variety of skills that are of utmost importance and influence when it comes to effective management.

Resources to Help You Succeed in Management

Aside from the research, I want to offer a few supportive resources also. 

First up: SHRMs, that’s SHRM and stands for the Society for Human Resource Management, which is a member-driven society that’s a worldwide authority on workplace operations from the perspective of people: full time employees, part time employees, contractors, you name it. You can find a lot of resources there.

As always, I want to remind you of Gallup as a resource. I mention them frequently because they provide a ton of research on organizational performance, employee engagement, and of course, management effectiveness. When Marcus Buckingham co-wrote First Break All the Rules with Curt Coffman, it was while they were at Gallup. 

In fact, for this episode, I’ve included a quick article called, “How influential is a good manager?” from Suellentrop and Bauman at Gallup. Again, your additional resources can always be found in the show notes.

Final Thoughts and Submit Your Questions

Worth noting—management isn’t for everyone, and it’s OK if you find out it’s not for you. It’s a big job, and if you’re the type who likes to go fast, likes to make quick decisions, likes to operate as an individual contributor—or simply don’t want the responsibility to manage difficult conversations when they come about—my advice is to honor that and do what will be best for you and your career. Gone are the days when the only way up is with management roles. And sure, some still carry dogma about this point, but… in the end, find your peace. Feel satisfied with your work. Be OK with feeling GOOD at work, whether you’re in a management role or not.

And there it is—Episode 23!! The next episode wraps up this season, and while this season, season 2, focused on a lot of inter-personal dynamics, season 3 is shaping up to be more business-centric, so keep your questions coming! To submit your question, go to my show’s website, AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, and click on the Submit a Question tab. While you’re there, click the big blue FOLLOW button if you haven’t already, and consider signing up for my weekly newsletter, “More Answers,” which I release every Sunday night to prep you up for the work week. When you sign up you’ll receive my “Survivor’s Guide to Business Challenges and Workplace Issues,” too.

Thank you for your support. And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!