Being able to prioritise is an effective skill of anyone with direct reports to manage. As they say in airplane safety videos, attach your own mask before you attach masks to your children. Managers need a way to prioritise what they do each day for themselves, before they can support the team around them.

Fourteen years ago, I decided to leave the world of primary teaching and accept a role in a global recruitment firm. Six months later, after a series of 1-on-1 conversations with my manager, an opportunity opened up. I took a promotion and found myself managing the local branch. What a learning experience!

The qualities of a leader have been long vaunted as crucial and important in our businesses. Management is seen as a little old fashioned but it appears that we have forgotten about the basic fundamentals of management skills which help our people succeed. Managerial expertise is a necessary complement to the leadership skills we’re so hung up on. Without the former, the latter won’t succeed.