Community Chest: How to become a better manager
2 minute read | October 19, 2017
In this edition of Community Chest, see what valuable insights are being offered on how to become a better manager.
Honest Self Evaluation
It’s easier to see issues in others than to identify them in ourselves. Encourage your employees to evaluate you, as you do them.
To give them peace of mind, make the questionnaires anonymous, with the ability to add their own comments – be ready to take any comments squarely on the chin!
People Skills
If you have them, develop them, if you don’t, get them!
Managing a team of people means dealing with a wide range of personalities, traits and learning styles. Discovering how to ‘deal’ with individual personalities is the key to managing a team. You can only do this by spending time with your team and ‘mucking’ in, not sitting behind a desk in a room on the other side of the office.
Buy In
No, we’re not talking about paying off your team to like you. If you’re the type of manager who spends their time moaning about the business and the culture, it’s more than likely your team will follow suit. Instead, encourage your team to buy in to what that business is aiming to achieve.
Employees that believe they are working toward their career goals, rather than just coming to work, will always engage more.
Open your ears
Perhaps the most consistent piece of advice on offer is to listen. While some think management is about telling people what to do and how to do it, the best managers are also the best listeners. They continually take on board the thoughts and opinions of their staff.
If you don’t know what motivates your staff and drives them both personally and professionally it might be time to take the cotton wool out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
Empower those around you
Good leadership is about empowering others. Not dictating, not micromanaging, not brow beating, and certainly not doing it all. A good team will have a variety of skillsets and personalities that complement each other; as a manager you should empower those people to reach their full potential and encourage positive results you can all enjoy.
Always learning
A good manager is always learning. Whether that’s a new skill, development technique or management style. They are always trying to better themselves for the benefit of the work and the team around them. They readily admit to not knowing everything, but work hard to ensure they are in the position to try.
So there you have it, advice and guidance from those in the know on how to become a better manager. Let us know if these helped or whether there’s something we’ve missed at [email protected] or visit our pages on social media and use hashtag #MSLCommunityChest
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