| Four key traits of great managers & leaders
Sharon Aung | University of Arkansas at Little Rock | |

Four key traits of great managers & leaders
What are the different factors in explaining why some people succeed as leaders and managers and others do not?
What sets the most successful managers apart from others?
Managers have the opportunity to lead, guide, motivate others and this makes a big impact on the company’s overall success. Great mangers and leaders can lead or guide an organization to great places. Companies will have to selectively choose their managers and leaders to understand the creation of sets of long-term objectives and grand strategies options. According to Morris and Upchurch (2014), “statistics show that 50-80% of middle managers fail to achieve the expectations of those who promote them.” What can you do to change this?
He or she might be really good in his or her field but that does not mean that he or she will be successful at it. He or she needs skills that are particularly suitable to the changing environment. The success of a company depends on his or her performance level as managers and leaders on the organization. There are a lot of books and trainings that are available for him or her in most industries but most of them rarely work because those are designed to concentration on technical skills instead of people skills. Managers and leaders are about bring out the best in people and guiding the subordinates in the right direction to achieve the overall organizational goals. Managers and leaders have to think on their feet and certainly they don’t have a step by step guide to follow. Learning to be a more effective manager is multifaceted and unfortunately not everyone will be successful as a manger. Certainly, there’s not a one way approach or guide to follow that will work for everybody. It takes a great amount of effort and practice to be successful as a leader which involves constant knowledge & development.
Some managers and leaders are not prepared to guide employees. Unless they work for one of the best companies, the types of management training programs they will receive are not the kind they need (Morris & Upchurch, 2014). In this environment, companies are striving to get a piece of the market to generate sales and revenue. It is hard to determine how the company will be because of the uncertainties and the external forces that are unknown to the nature of the business. It is so important to choose the best managers and leaders to lead the company.
New managers are hard to train because some might rather work than to get trained. Also, they have a hard time inquiring for help due to not wanting other people to view them as incompetent. “Research shows that you are more likely to be successful as a manager not by fixing your weaknesses, but by understanding and working around them” (Morris & Upchurch, 2014). Even in today’s society, the manager is hardly being recognize for improving his or her weaknesses but he or she does received the recognition by being honest and supportive. There are a lot of successful managers and leaders across industries and those managers and leaders have four successful traits in common which includes communication skill, emotional intelligence, strategic focus, and critical thinking skills.
Communication skill is essential to being an effective manager or leader. Most managers are lacking communication skill in organization and communicating effectively is an important part of being successful in this role. Bosses who don’t communicate effectively get in the way of their team’s effectiveness. According to Geisler (2012) it is beneficial for a manger to have all types of communication skills to manage people across the company. It is impossible to become a great manager or leader without being a great communicator. Majority of the time most managers or leaders spend their day communicating with others. If a manager don’t have a good communication skills, most of them encounter organizational problems because of their under-developed or lack of communication skill. Effective communication is an important part of professional success at an interpersonal, inter-group, organizational, or external level (Myatt, 2012). It’s not easy for a manager to fully master the art of communication but developing an understanding of how to master this skill will guide you to the right path. The best communicators are great listeners. Great communicators are excellent in reading a person or group by sensing the moods, dynamics, attitudes, values and concerns of those being communicated with. They are able to adapt to the environment and they possess the ability to understand or interpret people’s view (Myatt, 2012).
The emotional intelligence is another important skill to possess for managers and leaders. Whetten & Cameron (2011) stated “research on the concept of emotional intelligence –the ability to manage oneself and to manage relationships with other –has been identified as among the most important factors in accounting for success in leaders and managers.” Self-awareness has been identified as a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence, and it is more powerful than IQ in predicting success in life (Whetten & Cameron 2011, p. 14). People who have significantly higher emotional intelligence and self-awareness score contributed more than twice the revenues to the firm and were four times more likely to be promoted than those with low self-awareness and emotional intelligence (Whetten & Cameron, 2011).
Managers or leaders will need to have a strategic focus by planning for the future. Set priorities aligned with major goals. Learn to adapt to the changing environment and be able to strategically think on your feet. Managers and leaders need to encourage innovation by guiding/helping individuals make smart decisions or risks. It involves making decisions about what actions the company intends to take to become more successful. According to Hill (2014) managers and leaders often go through a strategic planning process by identifying emerging opportunities. Businesses are under pressure to grow and strategic thinking forces companies to understand that they cannot afford to stand still in a competitive environment. Managers and leaders will need to create new ways to continue to improve in order to avoid losing market share to companies that are not afraid of change.
Lastly, in order for managers and leaders to succeed in their role, they will need to develop critical thinking abilities. This will identify and challenge assumptions that can create problem solving solutions. Managers and leaders need the higher-level skill of critical thinking which this will determine the success of the company. Renza (2011) stated in today’s world, leaders will need to lead differently because the mind-set that made leaders successful in the past probably might not work for the future. Several recent studies and surveys have identified critical thinking as the number one requirement for successful leadership in the 21st century (Renza, 2011). Critical thinking allows managers and leaders to have an understanding of how their decision effects the organization as a whole. Diane Halpern, an award-winning professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College and a widely read author on the subject, offers this definition in her seminal book, Thought and knowledge:
Critical thinking is the use those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed- the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating references, calculating likelihoods, and making decision. It’s the kind of thinking that makes desirable outcomes more likely (Renza, 2011, p. 2).
Managers and leaders need to have critical thinking skills in order to achieve the company’s goals and mission. An individual who is able to strategically on their feet in a changing competitive environment is an important factor.

Critical thinking is a skill that can be taught.
According to Halpern, there is a large body of evidence showing that people can learn to think better. Or course, education makes us all more intelligent, but critical thinking is more focused. Everyone can learn to recognize and use the skills of critical thinking, and we can always get better (Renza, 2011, p. 4).
This statement clearly states that we can learn and develop ourselves to able to critically think on our own.
Managers and leaders need communication skill, develop emotional intelligence, strategic focus, and critical thinking skill in order to be successful in this role. The health of an organization is dependent upon the managers & leaders to plan out long term objectives and strategies. These skills are important for mangers and leaders to form their company’s competitive plan. As a manager or a leader, you have the opportunity to lead, supervise, mentor and motivate others and your ability to do so effectively makes a big difference to your company’s overall success. The performance of workers in the company is just as important as your performance as a manager and a leader. It determines the overall continual success of the company. Businesses these days have to strive to be the best they can be and putting your mangers and leaders who has these skills will be a valuable asset to the organization. These skills can be taught to individual who want to further their career in leadership positions. Companies are looking for people who have all of these qualities because it is required for competitive strategies for firms to survive in the industry. As competition continues to grow, the more firms will want to make sure that these skills are being met within the company.

References
Geisler, J. (2012, December 6). 10 key skills today’s leaders need to succeed in 2013. Poynter. Retrieved from http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/leadership-management/what-great-bosses-know/196814/10-key-skills-todays-leaders-need-to-succeed-in-2013/ Hill, B. (2014). Why Is Strategic Thinking Important to the Success of Business?. Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/strategic-thinking-important-success-business-4661.html Morris, J., & Upchurch, B. (2014). The Practices of Successful Managers. Business Know How. Retrieved from http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/successful-manager.htm
Myatt, M. (2012, April 4). 10 Communication Secrets of Great Leaders. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/04/04/10-communication-secrets-of-great-leaders/
Renza, C. (2011). Developing critical thinking in today’s leaders. Leadership White Paper. Retrieved from http://www.brandchannel.com/images/papers/530_paradigm_learning_wp_critical_thinking_0911.pdf Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing management skills (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall/Pearson.