Going Up? Traits You Need To Have To Progress To A Managing Role

It’s in the name: being a marketing manager means that you are in charge of people. When you are working in a specific role underneath someone you may feel that you can do their job better than they can. But there’s a big difference between thinking you can do something like this and showing your worth that you can do it. There are so many different factors at play when you are thinking about making a move up. But what are the best ways to tell if you are ready, not just for the progression up to a higher role, but also if you are able to cope with taking charge of operations?

You Can Demonstrate Successful Leadership

When you are working under someone, there may be little opportunity to highlight your skills. The most important thing to do when you think you are ready to progress up, but don’t have the experience, is to take charge of a smaller project. Managing a small project that you have attached to your line manager or boss is the perfect opportunity to show the skills you already have. And even if you don’t have them, there are companies like STL Training that can train you up in project management. At the very least, you can go for a job that’s in the ballpark of being a manager and you have some experience of the role in a superficial sense. You’ve got to demonstrate successful leadership, and you can only do this when you start to show your worth in other ways.

Completing Outstanding Work In Your Current Role

We have to remember that when we consider moving further up that we’ve got to demonstrate consistent positive outcomes where we are right now. If you can’t do this in your current role, it is unlikely that you would be able to handle additional responsibilities and pressures. Ensuring that you can achieve outstanding results in your current position is about project managing yourself. When you can show the people above you that you’ve been able to undertake a different approach to your work which has achieved better results you will be able to prove how ready you are to take on more responsibility.

You Can Handle Conflict

A lot of us would like to progress to a managing role because it pays more. When you start to look at why these roles pay more, it’s not just the additional tasks or responsibilities, but it’s about the pressures in a human sense. One of the big problems many leaders have is needing to mediate conflict. It’s an essential attribute of being a leader, and if you struggle with conflict yourself that doesn’t mean you’re not capable of leading a team of people, it’s just you’ve got to understand your shortcomings and overcome them before you you realise the importance of managing others fairly. You got to be unbiased as well as calm under pressure while also maintaining integrity and ethics. Look at the people you admire and think about how you can interpret this in your role.

Working up to a managing role can be done through a specific career progression, but you also have to remember the characteristics that you need. If there are things that you lack, you’ve got to overcome these before you can highlight to others that you are ready to progress. 

Disclaimer: This is a contributed post but I agree with it wholeheartedly.

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