Managers are often frowned upon due to lack of empathy, leadership, and appreciation. But not every manager lack these traits as few of them know how to keep their employees happy and lead from the front.
You cannot be a better manager overnight as it requires years of experience and learning with the passage of time. However, in the digital era, nothing is impossible as you have plenty of resources to learn and leap forward. If you want to improve yourself as a manager, a people management course online would help you to overcome all the challenges you are facing right now to become a better manager.
Before we move further, let’s take a look at statistics every manager must know.
- As much as 69 percent of managers are reluctant to communicate with employees
- 50% of employees leave their job due to a bad manager/boss
- 75 percent of employees feel they can approach their manager for help
Becoming a successful manager is not tough. You need to work on different traits to avoid being a clumsy and bad boss.
Do you know what it takes to be a good manager? Let’s find out without further ado.
Get Your Job Done
As seen in most cases, managers shift the workload on employees and expect everything to be in their favor. But over time, employees feel burnout and stressed due to work overload. Your approach as a manager should be distributing workload equally and not putting extra burden on others.
It is true that a manager has to look after employees and make sure each employee is working to deliver without any obstacles. However, with proper time management and creating SOPs, managers can ensure to get their job done and manage the team without messing things up. No matter how tight the deadlines are, you can manage your work and employees without any difficulty.
Know Your Team Better
Good managers get to know their team members and manage each individual accordingly. As everyone has a different mindset and personality, you cannot treat everyone with the same approach. Some employees need complete freedom and take ownership without supervision. While others require you to supervise in every aspect, whether related to their daily task or monthly reports.
As a manager, you need to mingle with them and get to know what inspires them to complete their work. Once you know each individual’s mindset and competency, you can assign work accordingly so that their productivity or morale stays high. Involve your team and communicate with them in a friendly way. Share and listen to their concerns and how you could resolve them.
After you address those problems, you will see the difference in their productivity and openness to communicate.
Share Your Knowledge and Experience
As a manager, you need to be more than just managing your team. Consider yourself as a baseball coach who actively involves in sharing experiences and how to tackle different situations in a high-pressure match. Instead of keeping your knowledge and experience to yourself, make sure to educate and share your knowledge with them.
Conduct sessions on a weekly or monthly basis where you and your associates can learn from each other. Develop leadership and instead of giving orders, work alongside your team to make the work process smooth, seamless, and friendly.
Don’t Micromanage Your Team
If you involve yourself in micromanagement, your team will get irritated and may hinder productivity. For instance, if a copywriter is taking more time than usual to write a sales letter, rather than asking why you haven’t completed the task in time, you can ask how you can help.
We all are humans and all days are not equal. Sometimes we are high and sometimes, we are sluggish. And that is okay because it’s normal for any human being. If someone lacks productivity or struggles with the assigned task, you could ask about the problem and take action accordingly. Especially for those employees who have consistently delivered top-notch work without compromising on quality deserve to have some leverage from the manager.
Map out Clear Workflow for Each Individual
Completing a project requires the effort of each individual. Not everyone is a jack of all trades and you can’t expect everyone to do all tasks by themselves. You are the manager and you must know each individual’s potential and capabilities.
When working on a project, make sure to assign each individual set of tasks according to their skills and abilities. Moreover, assign time to each task but also don’t forget to give some relaxation when needed.
Without understanding the workflow and not setting goals, you and your team might tend to delay and fail to meet the deadline. One of the best ways to meet a deadline is to set realistic timelines for a bunch of microtasks.
Reward those who Deliver Above and Beyond
Employees in your team are working and vying for some sort of reward. No one works for you or your company just to show how good they are. You as a manager have to make them feel and realize how valuable they are. If you are just asking to deliver more without any compensation, your team will never trust you and might not deliver optimally.
On the contrary, if you reward them with bonuses, salary increments, and other incentives, they will perform exceptionally and won’t leave the company soon.
Good Managers Always Give Honest Feedback
Your team is performing well and the results are showing positive results, but you are reluctant to give honest feedback. You don’t want your employees to feel relaxed and calm. That is what bad managers do to make their employees feel down and out.
Make sure to share honest feedback and share each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. While the criticism should also be constructive way rather than bashing, ridiculing, and demeaning way.
If any of the employees are facing trouble in learning or understanding the work process, make sure to take the lead and help him/her to come out of it.
Get Feedback about Yourself
If you want to be a good manager, you must listen to your employees. Make sure to conduct one on one sessions with each employee and ask what problems they are facing, how could you improve, and what more they want from you. By doing this, your employees will become more attached and create a strong bond with you without any fears and doubts.
However, in some cases, employees might not be comfortable speaking to you directly, especially when it comes to negative feedback or criticism. The best approach is to create an anonymous channel where names are kept hidden. Each individual can share feedback about you and also shortcomings that you need to address.
Summing Up
Being a good manager takes a lot of work and experience, which cannot be developed overnight. You need to understand the nitty-gritty about what it requires to be a good manager and, more than that a good leader. You have to be the person who gets involved, listens, and takes feedback from the team without taking things personally. A good manager does not promote politics within the team.
