We know this for a fact: luck is a factor, but it’s not the foundation of success. If you want to achieve important goals, you’ll have to work hard for them. But what kind of work are you supposed to do?
If we’re talking about professional success, you should focus on the type of work that helps you develop strong management skills. It’s great to be the boss! Some responsibilities are involved, but when you want to make progress in your career (and earn more money along the way), responsibilities are part of the journey.
Why Are Management Skills Important?
Maybe you’re wondering: “Why should I bother developing management skills? I want to do my job and get my salary.” But guess what: every profession involves working with other people, and that’s exactly when you’ll need your management skills.
The writer should manage an entire team when they are about to publish a book. If they leave everything in the hands of the publisher, you may rest assured that they won’t be happy with the final result.
George R.R. Martin, for example, names editors as “the writer’s natural enemy.” These are important people in the industry, but if you don’t have your authority as an author, they butcher your script in ways you cannot imagine.
If you’re a health service provider, you’ll still need management skills. Let’s say you have multiple people in the waiting room, but you have to focus on an urgent case. Those people will be nervous. You’ll calm them down only if you awaken the “manager” in you.
Then, there’s the issue of self-management, too. Vocational psychology researchers found that through career self-management, people gain greater control over their professional journey and gain greater career satisfaction.
5 Positions that Prove the Importance of Management Skills
Let’s continue with practical examples, shall we? These 5 career choices prove that management skills are more important than what you might have assumed.
1. Business Owner
Maybe you want to start a restaurant and grow your business into a chain. Maybe you want to start a website and turn it into a successful online business. Whatever the case is, any business owner needs management skills.
They need communication skills, so they can build lasting connections with business partners, employees, and the audience. They have to be flexible and adaptable with their plans, and they need to take strong initiative.
A business owner needs strong self-confidence and a work ethic. In other words, you can make your business great only if you work on your management skills.
2. Computer and Information Systems Specialist
If you’re a computer and information systems specialist, you work in the ever-evolving world of technology. If you don’t keep developing your technical skills, new generations will soon replace you.
But will the development of one’s technical skills inevitably lead to career progress? Not necessarily. This career demands consistent learning, even if you want to keep the same position. If you want to progress, you’ll need something more than technicalities; you’ll need management skills.
A computer and information systems manager makes a pretty decent salary. According to the latest estimations, the average U.S. salary for this profession is $79.582 per year. This professional plays an important role in the organizational structure.
They plan the hiring process of IT professionals, and they oversee the work of those employees. They are also responsible for planning, installing, implementing, upgrading, and securing the organization’s computer system.
3. Freelance Writer
Let’s say you’re a freelance writer, and you’re earning a decent salary without having an actual boss hanging over your head. Is this the point where you want to stay forever?
At one point or another, you might get interested in starting your own agency, which would sell multiple freelancers’ services to clients. Upwork already offers that opportunity to freelancers.
Professional writing services also offer career opportunities to their best assignment writers. They promote them to team leaders, who manage the orders and distribute them to the most qualified writers. Then, they oversee the progress of the orders to make sure everything goes well.
With proper management skills, even a freelance writing career can be more progressive than you assume.
4. Financial Manager
If you love numbers and you love accounting, then nothing would make you happier than a position in a big organization’s financial department.
The position of a financial manager is the career progress that all accountants strive for. This position is settled very high in an organization’s hierarchy. A manager of this type prepares financial statements, reports, forecasts, and summaries together with their team. However, they also evaluate the organization’s financial decisions and provide recommendations for the highest managerial levels.
5. Marketing Expert
You have great persuasive skills, and you’re very creative, so marketing was your choice of career field. This job is never boring! Marketing experts are always involved in creative projects, where they can use their wit, humor, and intelligence to convince people to buy different products and services.
Wit, humor, and intelligence make you a great marketing team member, but they don’t make you a great manager. If you work on your management skills, you can become a marketing manager, who plays an important role in the way an organization uses its resources to enhance its sales.
In this role, you’ll be engaged in the entire marketing process, from planning to execution to measuring results. Also, the marketing manager is in charge of the team member selection and distribution of tasks.
These professions were just examples that prove why management skills are important for career growth. We could go on, and that list would be endless. But you already understand.
It doesn’t take too much for you to start developing management skills; make the decision today and start building self-confidence, knowledge, and skills relevant to your chosen profession.
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