Five Essential Life Skills Managers Need
Oct 13, 2020

​Have you ever wondered why some managers are just competent and others excel at what they do? There are many reasons for this, including education and experience. But one of the most important reasons is that successful managers possess the following five essential life skills:


  1. Confidence: Confidence in your own abilities is essential for every manager. Yet confidence is also the ability to know when you’re wrong — or when you don’t know something. To a certain extent, it involves being able to separate your self-worth from your knowledge and skills. Consider this: You were hired for this position thanks to your skills and experience, so you can be confident about that. And when you don’t know something, it doesn’t mean you’re less valuable — it simply means you need to believe in your ability to learn more so you know what to do next time. 

  2. The ability to set healthy boundaries: As Kathy Caprino states in her Forbes article “3 Essential Skills That Will Help You Succeed in a Much Bigger Way,” you need strong boundaries to ensure you can live by your own vision of how you want to do your job. By clearly expressing what you expect from others and what you’re prepared to offer, you can ensure your boundaries remain intact and you don’t get too stressed or worse — burnt out.

  3. The ability to communicate effectively: In her article “Top 5 Life Skills for Resumes, Cover Letters, and Interviews” for The Balance Careers, Alison Doyle reminds us that verbal and written communication is critical when interacting with employees, supervisors, and clients. Being able to listen attentively and get your own message across helps you avoid misunderstandings and achieve your goals.

  4. A positive point of view: As a manager, you encounter significant challenges. If you have the ability to look at them from a positive perspective, you’ll be in a better position to motivate yourself and your team. You also become more resilient and creative.

  5. The ability to be in the moment: As Sharen Ross points out in her Lifehack article “10 Must-Have Life Skills for Great Managers,” people want to be heard and seen when communicating with you. When you focus completely on the conversation, task, or issue at hand, it will make people feel more valued and inspire them to do their best. 

If you don’t yet possess all five of these life skills, don’t worry. Now you’re aware of that fact, you can go to work cultivating them — either alone or with a mentor. And once you’ve cultivated them, you’ll have a much stronger foundation to build on and help your employees, your company, and yourself advance. 


Sources:


https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2019/08/31/3-essential-skills-that-will-help-you-succeed-in-a-much-bigger-way/#76b3c06d4039

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/life-skills-list-and-examples-4147222

https://www.lifehack.org/387145/10-must-have-life-skills-for-great-managers

14 Aug, 2023
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10 Aug, 2023
You’ve seen these guys before when a circus came to your city or maybe on TV. They walk on a wire at an impressive height, sometimes without insurance, sometimes with a long stick that probes the void right and left. They walk slowly, trying the wire with their toes first, making small steps, their eyes fixed on the small platform where they plan to land soon. They never watch down. They don’t listen to an audience that applauses or gasps in awe. They are concentrated on keeping their balance. To keep balance. Let’s come down from the wire above the arena or stage. Let’s look closer at balance, where it has its roots and the secrets of keeping it. Is it an art? Or is it a skill? Can you learn to keep balance? Or is it an innate skill that only gymnasts, figure skaters, circus artists and ballet dancers are born with? Want to know the secrets of a ballerina that must perform 32 fouettes, a complex ballet movement that requires turning 360 degrees at a high-speed standing on the point of a ballet shoe? First, keeping balance is a skill people must learn for years. In ballet, sport, circus, real life, and… work life. A ballerina is taught to pick one point and to fix her eyes on it when she makes her 32 fouettes, a complex ballet movement that requires turning 360 degrees at high-speed standing on the point of a ballet shoe. She focuses on one thing that keeps her upright. She doesn’t look anywhere else. Gymnasts in some disciplines are constantly trained to feel the bar under their feet. They are prepared to land precisely on the bar after they jump, and the incredible contortions we admire in competitions. But let’s come back to the circus artists we have begun with. Often, they have a long stick in their hands to keep their balance. Is their secret hidden in the stick? And what is the secret? You don’t need to be a ballet dancer, a gymnast, or a circus artist to get the idea of balance. Here are your first two steps in your balance training: 1. Keep your main priorities in mind. And have a clear idea about what is very important for you and where you are ready to compromise. But don’t listen to external opinions that don’t align with your ideals. Forget about the audience’s applause – focus on you. 2. Use some help to stay upright and get to your goals. Imagine your life split on two ends of the helping stick, your job is on one end, and your private life is on another. How comfortable do you feel at your height now with the load on both ends? You need support. We at Kelly pay a lot of attention to balance. The balance between people’s private lives and their jobs. The balance between feeling appreciated and professional goals or between achieving extraordinary results and being inspired. Talk to Kelly today. We are not ballet coaches or sports trainers, but we know much about how important work/life balance is in our lives.
03 Aug, 2023
We often associate certain qualities with individuals who seem to possess a natural talent for creativity. We convince ourselves that painting, singing, or dancing are pursuits reserved for these "real" artists while we remain mere spectators. Creativity? Inspiration? No, it's not about me.
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