What is the most important quality that a manager should possess and why?

Good communication skills Effective communication is a basic element that all the best managers have. This not only means communicating job responsibilities and expectations, but also listening to your team and working with them to produce results within your position. Good managers are trustworthy and respect confidentiality. Employees must have faith in their leaders and know that their managers care about the interests of their employees.

If your employees feel that you don't support them, it will create a toxic work environment, reduce collaboration, and there will be unhealthy competition in your workplace. Employees must also be confident that management is telling them the truth. Your reliability is based on respecting the privacy of your employees and offering honest advice based on what best suits your company's objectives. To find out what made good managers successful, Google conducted double-blind interviews with managers.

From the interviews, Google identified eight common traits of managers with high scores. Managers must support collaboration at every opportunity and mitigate toxic behaviors and unhealthy competition. Given the current trend toward continuous performance management and regular conversations about training, interpersonal skills are becoming an essential part of a manager's arsenal. Whether it's small daily tasks or a long-term project, good managers have a clear idea of what they expect from each employee, depending on their ability and capacity.

Good managers are the first to recognize this and therefore invest their time and energy in ensuring a smooth communication flow throughout the project. But, thankfully, there are qualities of a great manager backed by data that will help you make the right decisions. If an employee has behavioral or performance problems, managers must have the confidence to intervene and risk being seen as “the bad guy”. In addition to serving as a basis for training programs, management effectiveness surveys are also useful in times of rapid growth, when employee feedback indicates that managers lack basic skills, or when there is a high turnover of staff.

Another study by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCI) shows that bosses consider managers who show empathic behavior toward their team to perform well. When employees feel that they can trust their manager, they also trust the decisions that management makes and are dedicated to the goals and vision of the organization as a whole. That said, while the management position has its advantages in terms of professional development, it can also be a thankless role. If you want to maximize performance and make informed decisions for your organization, one of the best first steps is to evaluate the effectiveness of managers.

The qualities of a good manager include knowing what tasks to delegate and giving credit to those who deserve it. The results of the survey will also inspire reflection on ways to develop managers outside of formal training. So, if you've just taken advantage of this opportunity, it's best to get down to business and do thorough research on the qualities of a successful manager.