It’s always a great challenge to find someone who has all the skills to be good at management. Good leaders don’t just sit and wait until you hire them, but what’s crucial is that before hiring someone, you must understand the qualities – both personal and business – that you seek.

Below are 10 must-have qualities and skills that a good manager must possess by Lucy Adams, an outsourcer from IDAP Group.

#1 Passion for Work

It sounds like an unconditional truth. Everyone knows that “it is useful to exercise regularly,” but only those who exercise with a least some passion can comprehend and follow this statement.

The same applies to business. Love for work is a very important criterion. Hardly a morally oppressed employee will be able to show high results and bring something new to your business. But another question is how to measure passion?

• First of all, ask the candidate to talk about the period when he had to work especially hard. Clarify the reasons for such devotion. Listen to how the candidate describes such an experience: whether it was an interesting, challenging period in life or a nightmare?

Good marketing directors do not work just to get paid. Instead, they direct their every effort on improving the company as a whole and each of its components. They form departments of talented people and never allow them to work without passion.

#2 The Ability to Invent the Wheel, not Reinvent It

Creativity is one of the most sought-after and at the same time elusive qualities. How can you measure creativity?

• In my opinion, creativity includes the ability to generate ideas, think out of the box, research and give alternatives, introduce new methods of work, etc.

If you ask a good marketing director to invent a wheel, he will never answer that the wheel already exists and there’s nothing to do more in this field.

There are very few blue oceans in our world. Mostly all businesses operate in markets with strong monopolistic competition or oligopoly. A talented specialist will look at the problem or opportunity from a different angle, as no one else before did. Most likely, the candidate of your dream has a special notebook with ideas for all occasions.

#3 Loyalty

Loyalty may seem to be just another popular and obscure point in the description of vacancies. In practice, loyalty means that the promoted product become an inevitable part of the life of your team. Can you imagine Microsoft employees using Apple laptops?

#4 At Home Among Strangers, a Stranger Among his Own

Outstanding marketers like to listen and watch people and what is happening around. They like to learn about other people’s lives, tastes, and habits, as well as things they lack, like and hate. They watch TV ads, click on ad banners and save to favorites examples of the best companies and competitors.

For what? Simply to learn as much as possible about the surrounding world and understand the needs of people, which will help to these people a truly valuable product.

#5 The Ability to Lead

Any manager must be able to manage people efficiently. Team building, setting tasks, ensuring effective communication in a team, motivating and developing the team spirit are a must. Without all of this, it’s almost impossible to create a single line of positioning and behavior in public.

The success of the company depends on the work of many departments, including sales, financial, logistics and development. A good manager knows how to get along with all these people and achieve a certain degree of synergy.

#6 Strategic Thinking

What does it mean to think strategically? First of all, understand the essence of the business, as well as its long-term and short-term goals, at the same time anticipating future needs.

The ability to stay true to your vision and accumulate energy for crucial things is an important quality for any manager. The best leaders first consider how their actions will affect the long-term goals and only then take the final decision.

#7 Flexibility

The world of business changes at the speed of light, and no matter how well you plan, you always have to be ready to quickly solve the problems that arise. This is especially true when managing a startup.

A good manager can turn a failure into success or restart the product or shift the emphasis to other things in a matter of days or even hours. He does not rely solely on his plans and is always ready to meet force majeure face to face, as well as switch to new technologies and products.

#8 Engaging Storytelling

People love to tell stories, but what they love even more is to listen to a skillful orator telling something new, interesting and engaging. Great managers love stories about brands and can easily fit them into the everyday life of ordinary people.

• For example, the cigarette brand Marlboro largely owes its success to the ingenious Leo Burnett who came up with the image of “cowboy-tamer of the prairie.” The image conquered the nation, and in just a year Marlboro entered the top five of the best-selling tobacco products.

If your marketer does such things with pleasure, you’re lucky!

#9 Knowledge of the Audience

An advertising banner or video has only a few seconds to interest the person before he or she switches focus to something else.

A good manager knows everything about people to whom he sells the product and knows how to get their attention from the first second. He easily navigates in the channels of promotion and knows when to use Internet advertising or TV advertising or outdoor ads, etc.

#10 Salesmanship

A proficient manager understands thinking patterns of his employees and customers. He knows everything about the sales funnel, communication with clients and decision-making. He can sale unobtrusively, causing interest among the crowd.

I hope these 10 tips will help you in finding the right person or understand what qualities are worth educating in your young protégés. I wish you best of luck in your every entrepreneurial endeavor!

Lucy Adams is a blogger and aspiring writer who’s always ready to bring the most intriguing topics of yours to life.