Possession of the right skills and characteristics as an office manager is primal to the efficiency and productivity of your business. Such characteristics can, directly and indirectly, affect the work environment, employee’s attitude to work, and overall return.
Here are top characters every sound office manager should strive to have:
1. Creativity
With good creative skills, an office manager will provide a workable solution to most office problems. Using a creative mindset on office discrepancies, it will be easy to boost morale and motivate staff. Such creative skills can also help set the tone for a positive work atmosphere.
2. Emotional Intelligence
An emotionally intelligent office manager can adapt and handle stress at work effectively. This skill is essential to help them respond to various stressful and challenging work situations positively. Good emotional intelligence can also provide the basic skill they need to solve other staff issues.
3. Time Management
It is essential for staff to set and maintain schedules, as it is vital to project success. Such skills will help when delegating tasks within a project. All important work events, business and client meetings can only be successful if time management is top-notch.
4. Leadership
The office manager might need to lead the team occasionally. Strong leadership ability is essential to motivating and encouraging team members. Such skills will help when delegating, managing, guiding and collaborating with team members.
5. Strong Communication Skills
Strong communication is essential to thriving in an office setting. With such skill, you get to give clear direction, resolve conflict and delegate tasks responsibly. Since an office manager communicates with almost everyone in the firm, no matter the level, such skills need to be top-notch.
6. Empathic Ability
Often, an office manager acts as the representative of all employees. This involves the ability to lead with character and empathy to ensure everyone is on the same page. It also comes down to the ability to manage expectations without losing touch with reality.
7. Calmness
Most work environments involve a high degree of pressure. There might be difficulties in business, and team members will often look up to you. It is not guaranteed that you will win all proposals and clients. However, the manager needs to be calm enough to pick the team up, learn the essential lesson and move on.
8. Flexibility
In other words, rigidity should not be in your dictionary. Be ready to make tough calls and last-minute decisions to benefit everyone and the team. It involves constantly changing and updating your skill set with the needed improvement for utmost efficiency.
9. Trust
Micromanaging your employee is a recipe for frustration and underperformance. Besides, it reduces your efficiency as well since you are busy monitoring your employees. Have reasonable expectations and milestones, and ensure everyone is meeting them.
10. Project Management Skills
An office manager will likely manage series of the project at once. In other words, office managers need to multi-task and be organized no matter how busy their schedule is. It also comes down to delegating a task, following up on progress, and ensuring every milestone is completed on time.
Conclusion
As evident, a rock star office manager is a bundle of talent. While having all these skills might not be possible at once, you can develop and make them part of your ability with time. You can get in touch with us today for help in managing your team effectively.
