How To Be An Effective Manager
The success of any business depends heavily on the effectiveness of its managers. They can have a significant impact on business outcomes and employee engagement. But many organizations do not adequately select or develop their managers, and they miss a great opportunity for business advancement.
What makes an effective manager?
Good managers can have a significant impact on business outcomes and employee engagement. But many organizations do not adequately select or develop their managers, and miss a great opportunity for business advancement.
How to become an effective manager?
1- Empower your team
Effective managers empower their teams by giving them opportunities to stretch and grow in four ways. These managers:
- Do not micromanage.
- Coach their team to help them achieve their own goals.
- Make it clear they trust their team.
- Advocate for the team in the wider organization.
2- Care professionally and personally for your team
Effective managers show care for their teams not only professionally, but personally as well.
- Professionally. Managers can develop their teams by offering feedback, identifying opportunities for growth, and focusing on skill development.
- Personally. Managers need to show and communicate their care back to employees. Having empathy and developing emotional intelligence can be very helpful.
3- Be result oriented
Effective managers focus on empowering their teams to deliver concrete results. They combine a focus on urgency with an understanding of what results will have the most impact. In order to deliver results and support their team’s productivity, here some actions that effective managers demonstrate:
- Keep the team focused on results.
- Help the team prioritize.
- Remove roadblocks.
- Make clear about who owns what.
- Are hard workers; set the pace for the team.
4- Be an advisor and coach your individual contributors
Many effective managers are credible advisors to their teams. These managers usually have deep expertise in their field of work which they can use to help team members come up with creative solutions. These managers often:
- Roll up their sleeves and work alongside the team.
- Understand the challenges of the work.
- Help solve problems based on their technical knowledge and skills.
5- Set and communicate the vision
A vision is an important behavior of managers. A clear team vision is helpful for a number of reasons, in particular:
- It’s crucial to the success of a team.
- Team members need to know where they’re going.
- It helps teams decide what to work on.
Once set, a manager also needs to be effective at communicating that vision to the team. It’s important encourage managers to be available for their teams and to encourage open dialogue and honest feedback, even when there’s tough news.
6- Give feedback. Constantly.
Giving feedback is one of the most important and challenging responsibilities of a good manager. When giving feedback to their team members, it’s important:
- Giving quality feedback. Ask yourself, “Do I give the same quality of feedback to each team member? Do I know my team members’ projects equally well?”
- Using consistent criteria. Ask yourself, “Have I outlined expectations and anticipated outcomes for my team members? Have I defined criteria for success for each person on the team?” Using criteria that are clear creates a sense of fairness once you start evaluating team members.
- Filtering based on assumptions. Ask yourself, “Do I sometimes filter what I say based on assumptions?”
- Making sure you are understood. Ask yourself: “Am I making sure my message was accurately understood?” The more differences there are between you and the person to whom you are giving feedback, the higher the possibility your message wasn’t received quite as intended.
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