So you want to be a manager—it’s great that you’re ready to take that next step! But you should also know, becoming a successful manager is more than just years of experience and stellar people skills. To embrace management success, you’ll first want to develop an understanding of these five areas:

1. Communication. Strong communication goes beyond clear and responsive messaging, although a good proofread can go a long way. As a manager, your communication needs to include constructive feedback, employee recognition, and grievance management. You may even have to let people go. None of this is easy, but it can be practiced! For starters, listen. Think before you speak! Watch your body language for those in-person communications, and check that you’re sending your intended message (both in tone and content) for written communications. And always consider the best medium to deliver a message.
2. Emotional intelligence. Your emotional intelligence will help determine the kind of leader you are, and how you handle those difficult communications. Can you keep your emotions cool when the situation heats up? Can you practice empathy and understanding when your employees have difficulties with their work, their personal lives, or with each other? Can you be fair and reasonable, while still laying down the law?
3. Project management. The buck stops here—at you! That makes you responsible for the success of your team and its projects, even when a misstep was not directly yours. So you’ll need to know how to start out on the right foot, by setting realistic project goals, delegating to each team member’s strengths, and keeping the team motivated and on target.
4. Time management. You’re responsible for the team’s success, but you’ll quickly find your time pulled away from the day-to-day and pulled toward higher-level management duties. So you’ll need to prioritize your time and delegate, delegate, delegate! Trust your team and empower them to get their jobs done. Identify the most critical aspects of your role—the tasks you must handle yourself—and prioritize them by difficulty and importance.
5. Money management. You can only go so far without a working knowledge of budgets and finance, so study up! You’ll want to understand your department’s revenues and expenditures, including salaries, contracts, and travel. If you’re in charge of managing and setting the annual budget, it will help to learn some basic accounting principles and statistics skills. Know where your numbers come from, and keep real-time track of your expenses so you can stay nimble in the moment and know how to adjust your asks for next year.

With a little bit of prep work, you’ll be ready to tackle that next amazing management opportunity!