“Manager of One” Competencies for Everyone

Shared competencies are skills that every member of our team, regardless of role, should work to develop and refine because they are critical to success as a team of “managers of one.”

Source for #2-4: Top 4 Characteristics That Make Individual Contributors Indispensable

1. Awareness

Practice self-awareness and context-awareness.

“Highly self-aware individuals are able to turn their focus and critiques to themselves, observing their current emotional and mental state. People who are truly self-aware separate their decision-making from their emotions; they control and manage their thoughts, rather than having their thoughts and emotions control them.” Source

Behaviors

  • Regularly and dispassionately assess own successes and failures

  • Ask for, listen to, and accept positive as well as critical feedback

  • Empathize with and take the perspective of others

  • “Read the room” and tailor the message to the audience

2. Communication

Articulate their thoughts and ideas clearly, present information in a straightforward and logical way, and they ensure that they are understood.

Behaviors

  • Readily share useful information and knowledge with others

  • Consistently close the information loop by making sure they understood others and that others understood them

  • Truthful, realistic and constructive in the communication

3. Mutual support

Complete their own tasks for group projects in a timely and responsible manner and directly contribute to reaching the group goal.

Behaviors

  • Assist others in the completion of their tasks to support the group goals

  • Build and maintain cooperative work relationships with others

  • Effectively collaborate in meeting and in informal interactions

  • Play to each others’ strengths

4. Self management

Assume personal responsibility for achieving outcomes and work effectively with little direction.

Behaviors

  • Work on the right tasks by ensuring they know their top deliverables

  • Finish what they start

  • Assume personal responsibility for achieving outcomes

  • Effectively manage their own time as well as the time of others

  • Develop contingency plans in anticipation of possible problems & adverse consequences

  • Use technology to effectively track & steer their work

  • Effectively manage multiple projects/demands and competing deadlines