Managerial skills in 2022
2022 will be another year of digitalisation, deeply affecting managerial roles. What skills do budding and growing managers need to stay relevant through this year and beond? By Y Shekar
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• Problem Solving capability, • People Management Skills, • Effective Communication and • Creative Thinking ability. Here’s a low down on them.
Problem Solving:
Dismiss this skill at your own peril! Thinking I am already a problem-solver is just the beginning…. a long distance to traverse lies ahead!
VUCA, in the business context, has been already stressed upon. However, at most entry-to-mid levels of management, work is still very structured and their outcomes are predictable. Therefore, many management skills are still oriented towards problem solving in ‘known areas’ and management style is one of ‘directing’ – telling the team what to do, when, how, why, etc. It is also understood that ‘the manager’ has sufficient knowledge and experience to deal with all situations and therefore the challenging part of the role is to ‘manage’ the tasks and get the expected outcome. Roles therefore demanded familiarity with the problem and their known approaches to solving them, which were considered as ‘expertise’. The problem solving skills managers had to demonstrate was in identifying the best available skill/solution that can be deployed in a given situation. Now organisations are January 2022 |
STORY
gating it to the traditional IT folks, will not be a safe option. Business knowledge (domain) along with technology awareness (digital skill) will become a manager’s core capability, like use of analytics – marketing analytics, financial analytics, HR analytics, supply chain analytics, etc. will become essential skills. In the context of digitalisation, four skills/capabilities that managers must have are elicited below.
C OVER
t is that time of the year when new resolutions have to be made and new plans for accomplishing them. Welcome 2022 – hopefully it will be different from its immediately preceding two years! The question for budding and growing managers is, what skills will help one stay relevant in 2022 and beyond? Does one need to reskill, upskill or change the track completely – move from an established organisation to a start-up? Will acquiring skills in fintech pay higher dividends to one’s talent? Let’s explore – let’s gaze into the crystal ball and see what it has to offer for career development at the management level. 2022 will see a stronger adoption of digitalisation, and knowledge of technology will become core to all managerial roles. Business strategies, operational efficiencies and people management will leverage the power of technology and therefore, not knowing about relevant technologies or dele-
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