To become a people manager, the first step is to check if you wish to be one. This pause and reflection is critical which will avoid you becoming a ‘reluctant’ people manager. Once you cross the first step, we recommend two more steps. All the three steps are detailed below.
1. How to know if I want to become a people manager?
Relevant question. This can be addressed by closely understanding what people managers actually do and if you like doing the same. One should avoid forming a broad understanding of the role of people manager; instead, it is better to reach out and talk to those who manage people. Their live experiences offer greater perspective than a perception that you would have formed from a distance.
2. Know the skills that people managers need
Once you completed the first step of understanding what people managers do and if you wish to be one, the next step is to list down the skills and perspectives that are required to manage people effectively. Perhaps you can continue your discussion with the experienced people managers and understand the key skills; alternatively, you can catch up with some reading on the skills required for the same. The idea here is to clearly understand the “essential competencies for people management”.
3. Learn and hone the skills
Learning the skills before embarking on people management is better so as to improve your preparedness and personal confidence. Once you learn the essentials, you can always hone the skills on the job. Here we recommend you look for a practically oriented course than a theoretical one. People management is more of ‘doing’ along with ‘knowing’. Credibility is an essential prerequisite to becoming a people manager; you need to ensure that you have plenty of that through skills, track record and preparedness.
A planned approach to becoming a people manager will go a long way to ensure success as one!
Note: If you wish to know more about our experiences of how we helped many managers develop their people management skills, and about our Certified People Manager (CPM) program, please do write to contactus@e-cademy.in or call 9000177207.
