By Rose Miller
Congratulations. You’ve been promoted to a management role. It’s a big job with important responsibilities. But wait. Just how much do you know about being a good manager?
I remember what my wise dad told me. He was an amazing carpenter, who said he was only as good as his tools. Do you have the right tools to manage others? Here’s a little test. How many statements are true?
Your success as a supervisor depends more on your technical knowledge than on people skills. You should delegate only tasks you don’t have time to do yourself. To get the best results, promote competition rather than teamwork.
All those statements are false. Management by definition is the ability to get things done through the efforts of others. A good manager does this by empowering and motivating others. They lead teams to work together towards a common goal.
Here are seven basic tips that can help you make the successful transition from employee to manager:
1. Empower employees to feel they are responsible for their own performance.
2. Use an employee’s personal drivers to fuel their achievement.
3. Delegate to promote employee growth and responsibility.
4. Create clear expectations, define how to achieve objectives and hold them responsible for results.
5. Encourage participation by asking for input.
6. Use feedback to recognize outcomes and achievement.
7. Rely more on credibility and trust rather than on power.
Delegation serves several very important purposes. It promotes employee growth and development. It makes the best use of your group’s abilities. It promotes participation and builds competence. And it frees you from performing jobs that employees can and should do so that you have time to plan, monitor and measure the employee’s performance. Supervision is largely about delegation.
Motivation is the driving force behind successful supervision. Motivation helps you guide, encourage, challenge, and engage employees. To provide the kind of motivation employees want and need, create a vision that helps employees see how they fit into the big picture.
Good leaders provide clear direction and give lots of feedback and support. Feedback helps to set reasonable, achievable goals, and maintain consistent standards. Different employees may be motivated by different things.
I have a millennial sales person. I first began to talk to him about financial potential until I realized that was my driver, not his. I discovered his driver was the fact that our firm’s services help build stronger, better- run companies. He needed to get behind that idea. In our current diverse workforce, you’ll have to discover and use personal motivators unique to each employee.
Good supervision requires good communication. Communication between you and your employees, colleagues, and managers improves the flow of vital information and improves working relationships. To ensure successful communication, try to think about what you want to say before you speak.
Organize your thoughts into a logical sequence. Be concise and say only what needs to be said to get your point across. Use positive language, restating key points for emphasis. Be aware that you set the tone. That means when you’re feeling lousy or angry, you may have to practice an “award winning performance” to hide your feelings from staff.
Try not to over-promise and never lie. You may never be able to restore the break in trust. Plus, a good manager is not afraid to listen to what others have to say.
One reason new managers don’t succeed is that they fail to plan effectively. You should identify benchmarks you’ll use to track progress and success. When you’re making plans—long- or short-term—you must accept that plans may have to change because of changing circumstances. So try to be flexible and be prepared to remake your plans.
If this all sounds very hard, yes it is! Training is essential to becoming a good manager. Many managers believe they’ll just acquire these skills automatically. Wrong.
Can’t we all tell a story about a horrible manager? Insecurity and lack of training is the root to most managerial dysfunction. The best managerial training includes storytelling, hands-on practice and having specific training objectives that are shared in the training sessions.
It may take years of experience implementing training and honing newly learned skills. For many new managers, one of the most difficult parts of assuming their new role is making the transition from being just one of the team to being the leader of the team; from being a buddy to a boss. Remember you can’t climb the ladder if your foot is firmly stuck at the bottom rung.
Manage well and you’ll be very busy, not doing the work, but envisioning, directing and measuring the productivity of the team. Acquire the tools to meet your new responsibilities successfully and excel as a manager.
It won’t be by accident that you have become a fully competent manager who is excellent at motivating and engaging their employees.
Miller is president of Pinnacle Human Resources LLC.