One of the hardest things to be in the workplace is a manager.
To be in front of others and telling them what to do isn’t always easy. You might come straight into this position through excellence, or you might grow gradually into the role to become the member of staff with the most experience and the greatest longevity in your setting. Whatever your circumstances, it is crucial to learn how to be a better manager so that you can stand in front of your team and lead with confidence, whilst empowering the individuals around you and helping to develop them to achieve real results, both for themselves and within your team.
As a manager, it is key to ensure that you are doing the very best that you can for the people working for you. No matter how long you have been in your role, you can always work on improving your skillset, whether you are leading an office or whether you are at the start of your career. So let’s take a look at how you can be a better manager.
- Be consistent. For example, in booking training for your team members, it is also worth considering booking training for yourself as well. For example, if you want to book training through a company such as STL Training for your employees, then you might also want to make sure that you put yourself through training to be a more assertive manager. You should also you explain your reasoning for the training and make sure that everyone knows why they are going through training – just to ensure that everyone is happy!
- Make adjustments. Give yourself the time and chance to be flexible with your processes; a good manager is someone who knows how to adapt. One of the biggest mistakes that you can make as a manager is not adapting sufficiently with the times. Just because something worked ten years ago doesn’t unfortunately mean that it’s going to work now. You don’t need to overcomplicate things here; our biggest tip is just to make sure that you are open to adapting as ideas, trends and your team’s needs change.
- Innovate where you can. Did you have big ideas for innovation? Great, use those ideas and make sure that others follow suit. You can be inspirational when you innovate, and while product innovation often gets the main attention in the conversation, there are other ways to do it, too.
- Manage your people by knowing your people. It is vital to take the time to get to know every member of your team as deeply as you can, so that you can better understand their needs. It is also important to make sure that you are a fair manager, which can only come about from knowing who everyone is, what their goals are and supporting them as individuals who have lives outside of the office. Managers are effective when their people respect and trust them, so make sure that you’re on top of that.
- Be a leader. Being a leader means pulling your business in the right direction and the truth is that not all managers have the stomach for that. Leading will not always make you popular with everyone, so it is important to have courage and make sure that your decisions are ethical and just.
- Be flexible. When you have the responsibility of overseeing a group of people and managing their goals, you need to ensure that you are flexible with your people. One of the biggest things that people seek out in a manager is flexibility, because they want to know that the person that they work for has their interests at heart.
- Motivate your team. From better staff training to duvet days and mental health days, you need to think of all the ways that you can motivate your teams. One of the best ways to do it is to check out your current goals and ensure that you can directly impact their progress. If you are that manager, you will naturally become more popular with your staff and they will respect you and your leadership methods and help your company to flourish. Another way to motivate your team is by making sure you keep them informed, from letting them know about things such as Pentagon motability to explaining all of the benefits they are entitled to. It can be really motivational for them to feel informed and supported.
So in summary, to be the best type of manager, you need to be good with people – and when you are a manager who puts your people first, you will always have people looking to listen to what you have to say.
The positive effects of a people-centric management approach can never be underestimated.
