The 6 main qualities that make a Manager a good one

by MACI EJ GRE in MANAGEMENT

Recently, I attended a workshops for Managers. I learned what qualities are required to be a successful manager. Of course, each industry needs its own domain knowledge but on top of this specific knowledge, the qualities that make someone a good manager are more or less similar. What do you think are the most important skills? What does it take to manage people efficiently and effectively and get the best out of them?

1. Good communication
This is the main and prerequisite skill. Without being able to communicate properly you can forget about the rest. In all kind of management tasks the first and most common thing you do is communicating your needs, expectations and opinions to other people. If you dont like working with people, you shouldnt become a manager. Moreover, you should be able to send correct messages to others and ensure that they understand you. It is also very important what kind of power you

use to persuade your views. More about the way how to communicate you can find out reading The 7 ground rules of communication to became a good Manager.

2. Good organization
This is the second most important skill.You have to be able to schedule, organize and follow your own plan. It also involves understanding the rules and processes in the company and among people, and predicting what will happen and when.

3. Team building
A good manager should keep his team sealed. Competition inside the team is not beneficial for the well being of its members. On the other hand, the competition between teams is very healthy and stimulating. If one team member speeds up without helping the others leaving the rest behind, the whole team is doomed to failure. A professional manager will easily notice these irregularities. He will try to heal the situation by discussing it with his team and, above all, by listening to them. A healthy and successful team relies on trust to large extent. If a manager systematically builds trust, the team will feel more appreciated and committed.

4. Leadership

Listening to other coworkers problems is not sufficient. A good manager has to solve them and prove his commitment to the team goals. Its also his responsibility to define goals together with his team and assign the responsibility to team members in a clear manner. He has a clear vision in what direction he wants the team to grow. He should infect others with this vision and make them follow the same direction.

5. Dealing with changes

There are several managers who exactly know the whole working process. They are doing things almost automatically. The true manager should be flexible and adaptable. He is able to react quickly when facing any obstacles. Stress shouldnt be a factor to prevent him from taking the right decisions.

6. Domain knowledge
A good manager has to understand what kind of process he is managing. How his team members are working. What kind of tasks they perform. This skill is not as important as the others but without it, in some cases, the team and the manager will never work at full capacity, using the whole potential due to lack of mutual understanding.

How to improve your management skills?

Well, this is the subject for another long separate blog post. I think that each person has to follow his own path to reach the ultimate goal. We are all different. Some of us communicate very well, but in stressful situations they can lose control. Others are great leaders, they motivate teams but anyhow they fail due to the lack of organizational skills and common sense. The main question probably should be: Why do you want to be a manager and what type of a manager do you want to be? What do you think makes a manager a good one? Share your opinions and experience with us below or meet us on Twitter: @GOYELLO
ave you been wondering how to put together an impressively-phrased Powerpoint presentation? Have you been wondering how to compose an e-mail that captures your strategies and goals effectively? It is time you did something about it. As a young professional in today's global business world, it is imperative that you are competent in both oral as well as written communication. Important forms of oral communication at the workplace include: Building interpersonal relationships. Giving presentations and debating viewpoints effectively.

You need to master oral skills for both in-person and over-the-phone interactions. Similarly, important written communication includes:

Writing professional e-mails (sans SMS slang). Putting together concise reports. Creating visually powerful Powerpoint presentations.

And the key to acing oral and written communication is to spruce up your communication skills. And it is a lot easier than you think. Here are some easy tips to do it on your own: 1. Improve pronunciation and diction There are a few tricks to making a vernacular accent more globally understandable. ~ Try making sure that 'air' comes out of your mouth when saying the letters, 'T, P, K' and the sound 'Ch'. ~ Focus on elongating your vowel sounds. This will also automatically slow down your rate of speech. ~ Sing English songs out loud! ~ Watch news shows on channels like CNN and BBC. ~ The web site www.m-w.com is great for pronunciation help. ~ I would also suggest buying books on pronunciation and language that come with audio cassettes. A good book that I found really useful was Better English Pronunciation by J D O'Connor. It is part of the Cambridge series, and some of those books come with cassettes. 2. Spruce up your writing skills ~ Believe it or not, you have to Read More! ~ Well-written magazines, like The Economist and India Today, are great to read not only to improve language skills but also to learn more about the world. ~ In terms of books, read what interests you. The basic goal is to read as much as you can. There are a plethora of good authors who are popular today. Some good writers whose language is easy to follow include Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Paulo Coelho, J D Salinger, Albert Camus and Roald Dahl. ~ People tend to forget basic grammar when writing e-mails. An e-mail is nothing more than a letter which is sent electronically. Make sure salutations and content are professional. Use special phrases when attaching documents. For example, "Please find attached with this e-mail a report on..." This helps you sound professional. 3. Five exercises to practise every day! i. Pretend you are a newscaster and read out the newspaper to your mirror. ii. Do not read local newspapers. Focus on national newspapers.

iii. While reading a book, underline all the words you do not know. Look them up in the dictionary. iv. Make a list of these words, and make sure you use at least five of them in a conversation during the day. v. Most important, make an effort to speak in English to your friends and family. Nasha Fitter spoke to Merril Diniz Nasha Fitter operates Fitter Solutions, a communication and training organisation with expertise in public and interpersonal communication.

Spoken English Tips (Learner's Experience)

The following tips helped me improve my spoken English and overcome my hesitation in the language. Hope they are useful for you too.

1. Dont worry about making mistakes because you will. 2. Be patient. This isnt a one day process. 3. Learn certain phrases that can be used in multiple situations. 4. Learn how to greet someone properly. 5. Talk slowly and carefully. Dont rush through your sentences. 6. Restrict yourself to simple sentences until you gain confidence. 7. Watch out for your pronunciation. Many online tools will tell you how to pronounce a word
correctly. Check one of them out when youre in doubt.

8. Carefully observe how proficient speakers of the language pronounce words and frame their
sentences.

9. Ask your friends, relatives and anyone you can to point out your mistakes and correct them. 10. Speak to them in English only. Practice is a must. 11. Record yourself reading one article aloud every day. Focus on pronunciation, speed, clarity and
emphasis.

12. Many online sites offer you the opportunity to voice chat with another user. This is an effective
way to practice.

13. Learn at least one new word every day and use it as a part of your conversation with people. By
the end of the week, you should know seven words really well.

14. Learn new words everyday 15. Read at least one article of your choice aloud every day. 16. Watch English movies with subtitles. 17. Watch English shows. 18. Read books and magazines. 19. Keep a pocket dictionary handy for any word you may need to know the meaning of. 20. When you hear a new word, try to find its usage and its antonyms.

10 tips for speaking in English

Manek, an engineering graduate from Bhopal, said that the following practices helped him when he was learning English: 1. The first thing I would do after getting up every morning was read the newspaper, front to back. It doesnt matter which newspaper you subscribe to, as long as it is a major English-language paper, such as The Hindu, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, etc. While different people have different opinions on the quality of each paper, they are all more or less equally useful in getting to learn the language. It is also not necessary to read every page and article; it is timeconsuming and, sometimes, boring. However, you should most definitely look for articles that interest you. 2. I bought a pocket dictionary. They are cheap, compact and useful. There were many words I came across on a day-to-day basis that I did not know, and carrying a pocket dictionary everywhere allowed me to look up these words immediately so that the matter would not slip off my mind later. 3. Once learned, I also made a conscious effort to use the words in conversation. This instilled the words in my head and I was able to draw on them whenever required. 4. I convinced some of my friends to come together and form something of a study group; we were all interested in learning English, and I figured it would make it easier and more fun for us to do it together. We met twice a week in the evening and discussed the words and phrases we had come across, suggested articles, magazines, and books to each other, etc. 5. Another thing my group of friends and I kept in mind was the importance of talking only in English, whenever possible. During our weekly meetings, not a word of Hindi (the only other language any of us spoke) was uttered. This sort of commitment is absolutely necessary if you want to develop fluency. 6. A couple of weeks into my learning experience, a friend talked about the issue of language of thoughts during one of our meetings. This, too, is an interesting aspect of ones linguistic foundations: what language do you think in? I realised that I thought in Hindi, and thus whenever I spoke in English, I was, in a way, translating in

Best of luck

my head. This made the entire process slower and more laborious. So I decided to start making a conscious effort to think in English. When I spoke in Hindi, I was often trying to figure out beforehand what the phrase would be in English before I said it. This takes some getting used to, but soon you will find it becoming a second nature; the phrases will come faster and easier then. 7. I made it a point to pick up at least one English book a month. I cannot stress the importance of this enough; books introduce you to the possibilities of the language, expose you to the various ways in which words can be manipulated and played around with. Your vocabulary of words, phrases, colloquialisms, etc. will increase sharply this way. Also, reading develops thinking, i.e., as you read, you automatically begin to think more in the language that your reading material is written in. 8. Every night I would watch an English news channel (NDTV, Headlines Today, CNN-IBN, etc.) for at least half an hour. The news anchors and reporters generally speak very crisp and proper English. It is also useful to watch English TV shows. 9. My friends and I would rent the DVD of an English movie every week,and watch it with the subtitles on. This way, you can always make out what the actors are saying, and the context of the movie helps you understand what unfamiliar phrases might mean. 10. I developed the habit of paying close attention whenever I was within listening distance of a conversation in English. This may seem like eavesdropping, but when someone is speaking loud enough in public for others to hear him or her, it is unlikely that anything very personal is being discussed. At least, I defended my practice with that rationale, because it helped me pick up common phrases on a daily basis

Improve Spoken English-Learn How to improve Spoken English (Learners Experience)

The English language is spoken in many nations including India. Speaking the language fluently allows one to feel confident while communicating or interacting with different people. Not being fluent in English often leads to embarrassing situations for us; we feel unsure of ourselves and that only makes things worse. Here are a few ways that can help overcome the fear, and become confident in speaking English: 1. Ever wondered why you are so fluent with your mother tongue? It is because you speak and hear the language more often. What does this suggest? The first and the most crucial step to improve spoken English is to speak it as often as you can. Speak in English with friends, family, relatives, etc. Do not worry about making mistakes. In fact, encourage people around you to correct you as often as they can. This will help you speak correct English and boost your confidence. 2. Feeling under confident forces us to speak rapidly because we stumble with words or feel unsure about the pronunciation. Do not let this happen, it shows anxiety and the other person will struggle to understand what you are saying. Speak at a comfortable pace and pronounce your words correctly. Theres is no reason to feel shy or intimidated. We all make mistakes and the only way to learn is to practice and have others correct us.

3. Use a dictionary to learn new words or to find out the meaning of a word you may have heard. Make a list and use these words as often as you can. 4. Read books, newspapers and magazines. This will allow you to understand the language better and help you learn new words to widen your vocabulary. 5. Watch English movies, preferably with subtitles. This, too, will aid you in understanding the language better. 6. Read one article out aloud every day, and if possible ask someone to listen and correct you. Focus on speed, clarity and correct pronunciation. 7. Record your own voice and listen to it. This will help you gain confidence and work on your mistakes. 8. Try and find a partner who is also interested in improving his/her spoken English. Practice together, correct each other and learn together. 9. Think in English, instead of translating sentences from other languages that youre familiar with. Doing this leads to grammatical mistakes and deteriorates the quality of your spoken English. 10. Join an online English learning course. Such a programme provides you with the right content and opportunities to practice with other users. Besides this, your answers are corrected and proper feedback is provided.

British English vs. American English

In India, USA, and many other countries, the English language was first introduced by the process of British colonization. After independence, India retained the British form of the language, whereas USA decided to develop its own form. Noah Webster, compiler of the first American dictionary, can partially be held responsible for this. He felt that words ought to be spelt like they sound, and he also wanted USA (an emerging super power) to assert its cultural independence and was not keen on following the British form of the language. The two languages differ primarily in the following aspects: Vocabulary : Let us consider some vocabulary differences 1. Americans use the word apartment whereas in India (or Britain) the word is replaced with flat. 2. Trash is a common term in USA but British English uses the word rubbish for the same. 3. The term ill is specific to the British form of the language. In America, it is replaced with the word sick. 4. The word schedule is specific to the American form. The British form of the word is timetable. 5. The commonly used term toilet or public toilet is hardly heard in America. If in need, ask for a rest room.

Spelling : Let us consider some spelling differences 1. OUR VS OR - In America, words like favour are spelt without the U. The correct spelling according to the American form is favor. Another example would be the word labour which in USA is spelt as labor. 2. RE VS ER - British English spells words like centre, theatre and litre using RE, however, American English replaces the RE with ER so centre becomes center, theatre becomes theater and litre becomes liter. 3. ISE VS IZE - British English spells words like specialise, commercialise using ISE but American English replaces the ISE with IZE. 4. CE VS SE - Were used to spelling defence using CE but Americans replace the CE with SE, so defence becomes defense. 5. AE VS E - British English spells archaeology with an AE(highlighted), Americans use only E and omit the A, thus spelling the word as archeology 6. OEU VS EU - A similar rule applies to words like manoeuvre, which British English spells with OEU whereas American English spells using only EU. 7. OGUE VS OG - British English spells words like Catalogue using OGUE whereas American English spells them as Catalog, thus omitting ue and using OG. Let us now take a look at some more rules. British English Woollen, Jewellery , Travelling Omelette Pyjamas Sulphur Colour Counsellor Transferral American English Woolen, Jewelry, Traveling Omelet Pajamas Sulfur Color Counselor Transferal

Date and Time : Let us consider some differences in date and time 1. In the United States, dates are written in the month/date/year format (12/13/2011). Followers of the British form, though, are more familiar with the date/month/year format (13/12/2011). 2. British English teaches us to write time using a full stop (6.00). American English uses a colon in place of the period, making it look like 6:00.

Pronunciation : Certain words are pronounced differently by those who align themselves with American English and those who follow the British form. For e.g., hostile is pronounced to rhyme with file by the British, whereas, the Americans prefer to homophonise it with hostel, even though it is spelt the same way everywhere. The same applies to missile. Other examples include privacy, pronounced priv -uh-see by the British but pra-eye--vuh-see by the Americans, and semi pronounced sem-ee by the British and sem-eye by the Americans. Titles and acronyms : The British form omits the period after Dr, Mr, Mrs, etc, while American speakers feel the need for one. They would write, Dr., Mr., and Mrs., etc. The rule works differently when it comes to acronyms. The American form believes in the use of the period after each initial (U.S.), whereas, the British form does not (US).

English Words
Here is a list of commonly used words in the English language. Do you know the meaning of these words? Can you identify the nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs in this list? Abundant Accept Accidentally Accurate Achieve Actor Add Addicted Admire Explain Extremely Eye Fabulous Fair Fairly Faithful Faithfully Family Offend Offer Officially Often Oil Old Open Openly Orange

Admit Adopt Adorable Adventurous Advertisement Advise Afraid Afternoon Aggressive Agree Airport Alcoholic Alert Allow Aloof Always Ambitious Ambulance Ancient

Famous Fancy Fantastic Fast Fast Fear Fearful Fearless Feel Fertile Fight Filthy Find Finland Fish Flag Flower Fly Foolish

Overconfident Oxygen Oyster Painfully Paint Painting Parrot Patiently Pay Peaceful Pencil Piano Pick Pillow Pink Pizza Planet Plastic Play

Angrily Angry Animal Animated Announce Annoying Answer Anxious Apple Appreciate Approve Argue Army Arrive Arrogant Arrogantly Ashamed Ask Assist

Foolishly Football Forest Forget Forgetful Forgive Fortunately Fountain France Frankly Friendly Fry Funny Furniture Garage Garden Gas Gather Generally

Polite Politely Poor Poorly Portugal Positively Potato Powerful Pray Precious Pretty Print Properly Proud Pull Punch Punish Purchase Push

Attack Attractive Auspicious Australia Awesome Awful Bad Badly Bake Balloon Banana Bashful Bathe Battery Be Beach Beard Beat Beautiful

Generously Gentle Gently Get Ghost Girl Give Glamorous Glass Glorious Glow Gold Gorgeous Graceful Gracefully Grass Grateful Great Greece

Queen Quick Quickly Quiet Quietly Quill Quit Race Rain Rainbow Raincoat Rapid Rare Rarely Read Really Red Refrigerator Regularly

Beautifully Become Bed Beg Behave Belgium Belligerent Beneficial Best Bet Big Bitter Bitterly Bizarre Black Blindly Blue Boast Boil

Greedy Green Greet Grow Guess Guitar Hair Hamburger Handsome Happily Happy Harass Harsh Hate Healthy Hear Heavy Helicopter Helmet

Relax Reluctantly Remarkable Remember Repeatedly Reply Responsible Restaurant Retire Rich River Rocket Romantic Room Rose Royal Rub Rude Rudely

Boldly Boring Borrow Boy Brainy Branch Bravely Breakfast Breathe Briefly Bright Bring Broad Broken Brother Build Burn Bury Busily

Help Helpful Highly Hilarious Historical Hit Holiday Honestly Honey Hope Hopelessly Horrible Horse Hospital Hot House Huge Humorous Hungry

Russia Sadly Safely Sandwich School Scintillating Scooter Secretive See Seldom Select Selfish Selfishly Sell Send Serious Seriously Shampoo Sharp

Busy Buy Call Calm Camera Candle Capable Car Caravan Careful Carefully Careless Caring Carpet Cartoon Catch Cautious Certainly Challenge

Hydrogen Ice Identify Ignorant Illegal Imaginary

Shiny Shocking Shoe Short Shy Silently

Immediately Silly Impolite Important Impossible Innocent Innocently Insect Instantly Insurance Intelligent Interesting Sincere Sing Skinny Slim Slow Slowly Small Snore Soccer Soft

Interestingly Softly Interrupt Sometimes

Change Charming Cheap Cheat Cheerful Chew China Choose Chubby Church Clap Clean Clean Clearly Clever Clumsy Cold Collect Colorful

Introduce Iron Irritate Island Jackal Jealous Jealously Jelly Jewellery Jolly Jordan Joyfully Juice Juicy Jump Juvenile Kangaroo Keep Kick

Soon Spicy Spiritual Splendid Spoon Stand Stare Start Stink Stone Strictly Strong Study Successful Suddenly Sugar Surprisingly Sweden Sweep

Comfortable Compare Complain Concerned Confess Confuse Confused Construct Control Copy Count Courageously Crayon Create Crowd Crowded Cruel Cruelly Cry

Kind Kindly King Kiss Kitchen Kite Knife Lamp Large Laugh Lawyer Lazily Learn Leather Leave Legal Lend Less Library

Sweet Sweetly Swim Take Talented Talk Tall Tasty Teach Teacher Tear Telephone Television Tell Tense Tent Terrible Terribly Terrific

Curious Curiously Curly Cute Daily Damage Damaged Dance Dangerous Dark Daughter Death Deep Defective Delicate Delicious Delightfully Deliver Denmark

Lie Light Lighter Like Lion Listen Literate Little Lively Lizard Lock London Lonely Lose Loud Loudly Love Lovely Lovingly

Thailand Thank Thankfully Thick Thin Thoughtfully Tiny Tomato Tomorrow Toothbrush Traffic Train Travel Truck Type Uganda Ugly Umbrella Understand

Depressed Destroy Determined Diamond Different Dinner Dirty Disagree Disease Disgusting Doctor Dog Drag Dream Dress Drive Drop Dry Dusty

Loyally Lucky Lunch Machine Macho Madly Magazine Magical Magician Magnificent Make Manchester Market Marry Massive Match Mature Mean Measure

Unexpectedly Unfortunately Unique Untidy Upset Urgently Use Usually Valiantly Van Vase Vegetable Very Victorious Violent Violently Visit Vulgar Vulture

Early Earn Easily Easter Eat Educated Efficient Egg Eggplant Egypt Elderly Elegant Elephant Embarrassed Employ Empty Encourage Encouraging Energy

Meet Messy Microphone Modern Monkey More Morning Motorcycle Move Murder

Wait Walk Wall Want Warm Warn Weak Wealthy Wed Weep

Mysteriously Well Nail Napkin Narrow Nasty Naturally Naughty Nearly Needle Whale Wide Window Wink Wire Wise Wisely Witty

Engine England Enjoy Enthusiastic

Nervous Nervously Nest Never

Wonderful Worried Worry Write Xylophone Yacht Yak Yearly Yell Yesterday Young Youthful Zealous Zebra Zoo

Enthusiastically New Establish Estimate Evening Eventually Exactly Excellent Excitedly Exciting Exercise Expand Expensive Nigeria Night Noisy Notebook Nutritious Obedient Obediently Obese Obey Obnoxious Ocean