If I'm not ready, then how do I get ready?

So, do you think you have most of these skills already? In the unlikely event that you do have these six top skills already, then that's a great achievement. Do keep in mind that there is always room for improvement, and learning is a lifelong endeavor. So, continue to improve these six skills, in addition to learning new ones as well. If you want to become, and continue to be, a successful and great manager, then this is a necessity, not a luxury.

If you feel you have some way to go, then don't worry; that is completely normal and okay. It's rare for a developer to have mastered these six skills without having real-world experience of being a manager. It is also an unreasonable expectation because even most experienced managers will still have some way to go!

Your task now is to truthfully assess how mature you are at each of the skills and make a plan to increase your knowledge and confidence to practice each skill proficiently.

As with all plans of improvement, you should start with a baseline of where you think you are now. I strongly recommend that you use quantitative measures, as well as qualitative notes. This may seem overly scientific and a complete overkill, but I find that it focuses the mind and helps to carve out time from busy schedules to dedicate to learning and development. Since this practice differs from person to person, you should adopt it in a way that you feel is appropriate to you.

Quantitative measures, or metrics, can be easily compared. Comparing your starting baseline with a later point in time gives you a quantifiable measure of progress. High-performance athletes and their coaches are obsessed with this, and with good reason, because it forms a solid basis for further discussions, such as which areas to focus on.

Qualitative notes are also important. This is your narrative, and where ideas for your actual steps to improvement will come from. This is the insight, reasoning, and background that only you will truly understand and appreciate. So, your own commentary can act like a captain's log, which could be kept private or shared with particular people who can help you to improve.

The easiest and most effective way to record, illustrate, and track your maturity and progress is using a radar chart, also known as a spider chart.

Use a simple five-point scoring system to assess how competent or mature you are in each skill, one being the least mature, and five being the most mature. You can calibrate what this means in real terms by your own standards. The point here is to show gaps and track progress. Clearly, you need to be reasonable and honest about scoring yourself!

This will require a bit of extra effort, but it can be very interesting and even more useful to ask another person to score you as well. Compare their scores with yours and recalibrate accordingly.

Having created a radar chart, make sure you date stamp it. Then, repeat the exercise at a predetermined fixed time interval, which helps to remove the scope for biases. Overlay and compare your charts, and you have your progress!

This is a method you can also employ for your team, and it gives you something more real to consult your mentor on, which is the next step.