We’ve all worked for bad managers, and most of us can
remember how it made us feel. Some of us have even left a role or the
organization itself as a result of bad management. In fact, studies show that “seven
in 10 U.S. workers say they would leave a job if they had a bad manager.”
Here are seven qualities that will improve your ability to
manage and become the best you can be:
Connect the Work to the Vision
Everyone wants to feel like they are part of something
bigger than themselves. Help your employees understand how their individual
contributions support the company’s overall success. Validate their concerns
and empower them to make decisions that are in the best interest of the
organization. Listen to their ideas and suggestions for improvement.
Communicative
Being honest and transparent builds employees’ trust in
management. Managers need to be open with their employees, and that openness
should go both ways. Good managers give honest feedback and are open to
feedback in kind.
The best managers also know how to communicate goals and
expectations to employees to ensure that everyone knows what’s expected of
them. And don’t forget, half of communicating is listening—the best managers
listen to their employees and respond thoughtfully.
Engaged in Your Work
You can’t expect your employees to be engaged at work if
you aren’t. This means demonstrating not only a passion for the vision and for
the work, but also for your employees. Meet with them regularly, both as a team
and through regular 1:1s. Get to know them as people. Learn their goals and
desires, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Show up for them and
they’ll show up for you.
Calculated Risk-Taker
It will be impossible for you to thrive in the next normal
if you are risk-averse. As Mark Zuckerberg said, “In a world that’s changing so
quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.”
Those risks have to be compatible with the type of world
you live in, naturally. You have to be well-prepared, composed and focused, so
that the decisions you make stand the best chance of being right.
Empowering
As a manager, it might be tempting (and sometimes easier)
to just do the work yourself, but that’s a temporary fix. Great bosses don’t
control; they coach. This means providing feedback on a regular basis,
developing your employees’ problem-solving skills, and setting broad goals
while giving your team room to figure out how they’ll achieve them. Managers
don’t need to have all the answers. They need to set up appropriate challenges
for those they supervise so they can try new things and learn.
Fostering Psychological Safety
For innovation to happen, team members need to feel safe
and trust that the other members of their team have their back. That goes for
their manager, too. This can be achieved by role-modelling the kind of
behaviors that generate trust, such as encouraging debate, allowing people to
express their opinions and share ideas, and allowing people to make mistakes
and learn from them.
We are living in a time of constant change and, some would
even say, constant crisis management. Making your people feel safe through this
ambiguity is a key skill to develop in managers.
Future-focused
Of course, you have to concentrate on what has to be done
today to get the jobs and projects completed. But you have to balance
day-to-day operations with the big picture. Taking time to reflect can set your
team up for success. We need to be able to take strategic pauses to separate
the signal from the noise, make connections we might not have made in the moment,
and prioritize how to move forward. Assessing how things are going at regular
intervals and thinking through the most efficient way of doing things. For
instance, a new manager might spend time getting to know their team and
learning about what they do before optimizing operations.
Good management skills take time and effort, but they are
worth the trouble. A good manager can make a real difference in employee
engagement, loyalty and productivity. This is a win-win for both the
organization and the individual employees.
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