Skills for a Management Career: From the workplace to course activities, there are some skills that are not only useful in life but also highly desired by employers. In this article, we would like to introduce you to the top 10 management skills you need to enhance your career and personal growth. You do not need management skills? Think again. Contrary to popular belief, management skills are beyond organizations and companies; they help improve your professional path, your personal skills, and your relationships. If you want to advance in a management role, you need the best set of skills. If you were invited for an interview, use your past experience to illustrate how you acquired and developed the following skills just like yourself.
IIM Raipur, IIM Kashipur, IIM Ranchi, and IIM Tiruchirappalli have jointly launched a JAP admission process. In this joint admission process (JAP 2026), IIM Raipur will shortlist candidates and conduct the interview rounds on behalf of the other three institutions.
Traditionally, the term “Management” refers to four common functions (and often a group of people) involved: planning, organizing, leading, and coordinating resources. Note that the four functions are repeated throughout the system and are highly integrated. This topic helps the reader to gain a comprehensive understanding of the areas of knowledge and skills required to perform the key functions of management.
According to (Management Innovation, 2008), "Management is the process of achieving organizational goals by working with people and other organizational resources."
Management has the following 3 characteristics:
It is a process or series of continuing and related activities.
It involves and concentrates on reaching organizational goals.
It reaches these goals by working with and through people and other organizational resources.
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In addition, management combines all six Ms., namely men and women, money, methods, machinery, materials, and markets. They use these resources to achieve the goals of the organization, such as high sales, maximum profit, and business expansion.
Check out below the top 10 managerial skills that every MBA aspirant needs.
1. Teamwork
The ability to work in a team provides new and different perspectives, helps with motivation, and reduces stress. Ultimately, a team is a great learning opportunity and may open doors that you may not even know exist. In the work world, teams are increasingly trusted as a tool to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Wondering how to improve your teamwork skills? Be comfortable with highly effective team management ideas such as team performance and team mentality models. Both concepts have a strong track record when it comes to improving team performance and can be easily used in everyday business.
2. Leadership Skills
Investing in leadership is about investing in your ability to help express the best from yourself and others. Good leaders can act not only as forerunners of ideas but also as persuasive motivating guides to help others go beyond their expectations. How to become a leader? There are plenty of different leadership approaches. Consider transforming leadership as a starting point.
3. Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial skills are tools that help make a vision a reality. Consider startups and their founders: Often, entrepreneurs are practical and confident, beautiful communicators who are not afraid to think outside the box and put something new in the world. As the late Steve Jobs famously said: "stay hungry, stay foolish".
4. Conflict Management
It’s natural that people disagree on all sorts of systems—they will. Disagreement is normal and healthy, but only when properly managed. Learning some expansion strategies and taking the time to understand different perspectives can go a long way regardless of your position.
5. Negotiation
An old adage goes that “nothing in life comes for free”, which means we have to work for the things we want to achieve. A talent that is useful not only in politics but in all spheres of life—a big part, being able to say what you want in a harmonious, respectful way. Negotiation skills will last as long as asking to find a compromise in a fair and professional way.
6. Strategic Thinking
You do not need a complete fleshy strategy to be strategic - on the contrary, strategic thinking is a continuous process of "strategy". Think about chess: When playing, you can plan ahead, be brave, be intentional, and constantly improve your tactics depending on what you learn. To win the game, you need to prioritize, consider some possible scenarios and make decisions based on the best resources available.
7. Project Management
Any endeavor that is limited at any time and has a specific goal can be considered a project (learning new skills, getting promoted, building a house, etc.). Project management skills help you define, plan, organize, guide and control. With a plan away from confusion, you can achieve things like being strategic with your resources and learning from failure while monitoring progress.
8. Time Management
Time management is not just about being on time (it’s a great skill that leaves a lasting good idea!). Learning to use your time more without procrastination (surprisingly) gives you more time, avoids frustration, and can be accomplished. Bonus: You can re-invest your time in things you really care about.
9. Adaptability
No one knows everything, and being aware of it is often helpful, especially in a fast-changing world. If you want to take a new path and try something completely different without abandoning your principles, you will always be in a state of renewal and will never stop learning. This is a good starting point for innovation.
10. Communication
Effective communication skills can be considered basic life skills. It is not possible to perfect the ability to communicate information, but working on it can help personal relationships, improve your confidence, and really elevate your life.
There are many different ways to improve your management skills. One of the easiest ways is self-examination. You can read business books and intellectual articles about your most important management skills.
CAT does not restrict eligibility based on stream. Candidates from commerce, arts, science, engineering or any other background can appear for CAT and apply to MBA programmes offered by IIMs and other top B-schools.
The basic eligibility criteria for CAT are:
You must hold a bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognised university with at least 50 percent marks (45 percent for SC, ST and PwD categories). Final-year graduation students are also eligible to apply.
Being a commerce graduate can actually be an advantage in areas such as accounting, finance, economics and business studies, especially during MBA coursework in finance, marketing and operations.
After qualifying CAT, admission depends on multiple factors including CAT percentile, academic background, work experience (if any), performance in GD, WAT and personal interview rounds. Many IIMs and B-schools follow a diverse academic background policy, which means non-engineering candidates, including commerce graduates, often receive additional weightage.
Apart from IIMs, several reputed institutes such as FMS Delhi, SPJIMR Mumbai, MDI Gurgaon, IMT Ghaziabad, and many state and private universities also accept CAT scores for MBA admissions.
So, as a commerce graduate, you are fully eligible to appear for CAT and pursue an MBA, provided you meet the minimum academic requirements and perform well in the selection process.
If you want, I can also help you with realistic CAT percentile targets based on your academic profile or suggest suitable MBA colleges.
With a CAT 2025 raw score of 84 and strong sectionals, your expected percentile may fail in the high 98 range , depending on scaling. Your excellent academics and 2 years of work experience strengthen your profile .IIM Lucknow calls are possible but competitive for EWS engineers , while FMS Delhi looks mainly at CAT score and VARC , so you have a reasonable chance there . Final calls depend on cutoffs and composite score.
For MANAGE Hyderabad MBA , the OBC cutoff in CAT 2024 was generally around 85-90 percentile for shortlist consideration , tough exact figures vary by section and profile . For CAT 2025, if fewer candidates appeared , the cutoff might slightly adjust , but percentile based cutoffs dont change drastically year to year. A minor decrease is possible , but you should still aim for 90+ percentile to be competitive. Factors like VARC, QA-LRDI and overall profile influence the final shortlist.
For a raw score of 56 in CAT 2025 Slot 3, your expected overall percentile is likely to be in the range of the 90th-95th percentile. The exact percentile can vary slightly on the final normalization process and the process and performance of all test-takers. In this
article
you'll find more about the CAT result.
Hello,
With a projected CAT percentile of 87% but not clearing sectional cutoffs, your chances at top IIMs are limited because they require both overall percentile and sectional minimums. However, you still have a good shot at other reputed management institutes and non-IIM B-schools. Consider colleges like NMIMS, SPJIMR, IMT, TAPMI, Great Lakes, and other well-ranked private or state-level B-schools that accept CAT scores and weigh your profile holistically. Your academic record, BSc in Animation with 80%, and 5 years of work experience at Ubisoft India are strong points and may help in institutes that value work experience in their selection process. Also, explore institutes that accept XAT, MAT, or CMAT, where your profile can be competitive.
Hope this helps you.
A career as Marketing Director is also known as a marketing expert who is responsible for the overall marketing aspect of the company. He or she oversees plans and develops the company's budget. The marketing Director collaborates with the business team to plan and develop the marketing and branding strategies for the company's products or services.
A Business Development Executive identifies and pursues new business opportunities to drive company growth. They generate leads, build client relationships, develop sales strategies, and analyse market trends. Collaborating with internal teams, they aim to meet sales targets. With experience, they can advance to managerial roles, playing a key role in expanding the company’s market presence and revenue.
Content Marketing Specialists are also known as Content Specialists. They are responsible for crafting content, editing and developing it to meet the requirements of digital marketing campaigns. To ensure that the material created is consistent with the overall aims of a digital marketing campaign, content marketing specialists work closely with SEO and digital marketing professionals.
A Sales Manager leads a sales team to meet targets, formulates strategies, analyses performance, and monitors market trends. They typically hold a degree in management or related fields, with an MBA offering added value. The role often demands over 40 hours a week. Strong leadership, planning, and analytical skills are essential for success in this career.
A marketing manager is a person who oversees a company or product marketing. He or she can be in charge of multiple programmes or goods or can be in charge of one product. He or she is enthusiastic, organised, and very diligent in meeting financial constraints. He or she works with other team members to produce advertising campaigns and decides if a new product or service is marketable.
A Marketing manager plans and executes marketing initiatives to create demand for goods and services and increase consumer awareness of them. A marketing manager prevents unauthorised statements and informs the public that the business is doing everything to investigate and fix the line of products. Students can pursue an MBA in Marketing Management courses to become marketing managers.
An SEO Analyst is a web professional who is proficient in the implementation of SEO strategies to target more keywords to improve the reach of the content on search engines. He or she provides support to acquire the goals and success of the client’s campaigns.
Digital marketing is growing, diverse, and is covering a wide variety of career paths. Each job function aids in the development of effective digital marketing strategies and techniques. The aims and objectives of the individuals who opt for a career as a digital marketing executive are similar to those of a marketing professional: to build brand awareness, promote company services or products, and increase conversions. Individuals who opt for a career as Digital Marketing Executives, unlike traditional marketing companies, communicate effectively through suitable technology platforms.
Individuals who opt for a career as a business analyst look at how a company operates. He or she conducts research and analyses data to improve his or her knowledge about the company. This is required so that an individual can suggest the company strategies for improving their operations and processes.
In a business analyst job role a lot of analysis is done, things are learned from past mistakes and the successful strategies are enhanced further. A business analyst goes through real-world data in order to provide the most feasible solutions to an organisation. Students can pursue Business Analytics to become Business Analysts.
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