Are you ready to be a manager? The non-negotiable skills

It has been a few days now that I have been pondering about this question.
When do we know someone is ready to be a manager?
When does your manager know you are ready?
When do YOU know you are ready?

And should you know you are ready before you get the position?

The only thing that is certain around this topic is that there are as many opinions as there are brains in the world. Not only human…

To solve this mystery, I invite you to do an exercise with me.

1. First, let’s talk about your experience. What did the best and worst managers in your life do?

Take a sheet of paper and draw a line in the middle. On the left — add the behaviours of the worst manager(s) you can think of. On the right (you got it!) — list the behaviours of the greatest leaders you have ever seen and heard of.

When I think about this exercise, I am lucky to have more examples of great managers than the opposite. The "best manager" list combines the behaviours of my first and last managers. In the “worst manager”, I thought about an early internship and added some insights from the stories I have heard over the years.

Your list might be different than mine. What made impression on you will largely depend on your context, values and specific experiences. Even so, I am confident we will end up with a similar list of non negotiable skills in the end. Let’s continue.

2. What the literature has to say

The two images below show the skills discussed in the HBR Manager’s Handbook and Armstrong’s Handbook of Management and Leadership.
I am sure you have heard about those publishers before and both you and I trust their credibility.