Mastering the skills needed for a successful job search and knowing what can make you stand out among the competition is crucial for job seekers.

 

As the U.S. economy continues to expand and the job outlook for people with disabilities continues to improve, now is the time to channel your energy into creating the career you want - especially when you consider that companies that have improved their inclusion of people with disabilities over time are four times more likely to have shareholder returns that outperform peers.

That’s according to a new report, Getting to Equal: The Disability Inclusion Advantage, by Accenture in partnership with Disability:IN and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

It’s clear that more opportunities are opening up than ever before, so it’s with that in mind this year’s Annual Career-Planning Guide focuses on taking the right steps to acquire the skills that will land you the job you want and that will make you stand out at work.

The tips that follow will help you leverage civility at work, craft the right resume, master the management skills most desired and hone the traits that will help you achieve success.

 

15K-Plus Managers Agree: Top 10 Management Skills You Need

 

Being a manager is an incredibly tough job. Being a great one is tougher. Just consider the vast array of knowledge and skills it takes to deal with a variety of people, tasks and the needs of your particular company.

In fact, managers should know between 90 and 120 individual skills. That’s a lot. But thankfully you don’t have to tackle them all at once. Just zero in on the most critical ones and master them first.

You develop these skills over the course of your career. With each new skill you master, you’ll notice your confidence and ability levels rising. But it’s a good idea to start with the ones that give you a good, solid foundation on which to build.

Our survey of 15,242 managers and professionals worldwide, corporate.mindtools.com/LT2018?_ga=2.202296343.720885402.1524639751-2137262917.1523870579, revealed tips and strategies to help you master the top 100 skills.

But where to begin is the question. We suggest working on the most crucial skills first - the ones managers worldwide value and recommend. To get you started, here are the highest-ranked skills from the survey, presented in descending order:

Skill 10: Developing Emotional Intelligence.

Recommended by 72.1% of managers surveyed.

All managers need emotional intelligence to be effective. This means having the self-awareness, self-control, motivation, empathy and social skills needed to behave in a mature, wise and empathetic way with the people around you. Emotionally intelligent managers are a joy to work with, which is why they attract and retain the best people.

Skill 9: Building Trust within Your Team.

Recommended by 73.3% of managers surveyed.

When people don’t trust one another in a team, they waste a huge amount of time politicking and covering their own backs. By contrast, people in trusting teams work efficiently and well, and they can deliver wonderful results. To build trust, you need to lead by example, communicate honestly and openly, get to know individuals as people, avoid blame and discourage behaviors that breach trust.

Skill 8: Understanding and Developing Your Relationship with Your Customer.

Recommended by 73.6% of managers surveyed.

The way you do this depends on whether you serve consumer or business markets. When you’re dealing with consumers, you’ll get great insights into customer groups by segmenting your market and by developing customer personas representing these different segments. You can then use approaches like customer-experience mapping to give them an exceptional experience of using your organization. Where you’re serving a small number of highly important clients, this is where sales skills are important. And while selling is a profession in its own right, non-salespeople can also master these skills and use them to improve customer relationships.

Skill 7: Developing New Ideas via an Empathetic Understanding of Customers' Problems.

Recommended by 74.4% of managers surveyed.

A vast number of products and services now sell based on customer ratings and reviews. To get top reviews, it’s not enough to provide something that “does the job” adequately. You need to provide something that meets the needs of customers exceptionally well. Approaches like design thinking and ethnographic research can help you develop highly satisfying products, and customer-experience mapping can help you develop a great “customer journey.”

Skill 6: Bringing People Together to Solve Problems.

Recommended by 75.0% of managers surveyed.

It’s often tempting to try to solve problems on your own, but there are very many reasons why it pays to bring together a team of experienced people. Brainstorming is popular for this, but it also pays to understand structured problem-solving processes, to know how to facilitate meetings well and to manage the sometimes odd group dynamics that can undermine a good team process.

Skill 5: Understanding the Needs of Different Stakeholders and Communicating with Them Appropriately.

Recommended by 75.8% of managers surveyed.

As you run bigger projects, it becomes increasingly important to manage the many different groups of people who can support or undermine the work you do. This is where it’s important to develop good stakeholder analysis and stakeholder management skills. These really matter.

Skill 4: Understanding the Key Principles of Good Communication.

Recommended by 77.7% of managers surveyed.

Management is about getting things done by working with people. You can do this only if you communicate effectively. This is where the 7 Cs of communication - clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous - can help you get your message through more clearly."

Skill 3: Considering Many Factors, Such as Opportunities, Risks, Reactions and Ethics, in Decision-Making.

Recommended by 77.8% of managers surveyed.

We’ve all seen how bad decisions can be when they’re rushed, or when financial criteria are the only ones used. This is why it pays to use a formal, structured process to think a problem through thoroughly, including analyzing risk and exploring ethical considerations. The ORAPAPA framework - which stands for opportunities, risks, alternatives and improvements, past experience, analysis, people, and alignment and ethics - is a good example.

Skill 2: Prioritizing Tasks Effectively for Yourself and Your Team.

Recommended by 79.5% of managers surveyed.

All of us have a huge number of things that we want to do or have to do. The demands can often seem overwhelming, to us and to the members of our team. This is why prioritization is the second most important management skill, as ranked by the participants in our survey. There’s a particularly useful approach to this called the Action Priority Matrix, and every manager needs to know about it.

Skill 1: Building Good Working Relationships with People at All Levels.

Recommended by 79.9% of managers surveyed.

The most important management skill, as ranked by our 15,242 managers worldwide, is the ability to build good relationships with people at all levels. For example, there's a particularly elegant approach to relationship-building, which focuses on creating “high-quality connections” made up of respectful engagement, “task enablement” and trust-building.

Even if you already feel like you have some of these skills, then know that there’s always more to learn, and the results will show in your improved leadership. 

Practice them until they become effortless, and, in time, not only will you perform better, you’ll also get better results from your team and stand out as a talented leader within your organization.

– James Manktelow and Julian Birkinshaw

About the Authors: Manktelow and Birkinshaw are co-authors of Mind Tools for Managers: 100 Ways to Be a Better Boss. Manktelow is founder and CEO of MindTools.com. He’s written, edited and contributed to more than 1,000 articles, more than 60 workbooks, and seven books and e-books about management and leadership, including Manage Your Time and Manage Stress. Birkinshaw is professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, deputy dean for programs, and academic director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He’s the author of 14 books, including Fast/Forward, Becoming a Better Boss, and Reinventing Management.