If you can be a good manager and keep your team, project, and business running smoothly no matter what challenges come your way, you can become extremely successful. Yet although many people try to be good managers, not everyone is cut out to be one; you need to juggle numerous tasks, be in control at all times (even when outsourcing or delegating), and you need to have the trust of your team no matter what. Here are some tips to help you become a good manager, and get further in your career.
Help Your Employees
You might be the manager and therefore the person in charge of the team and the project, but that doesn’t mean you can do all of the task yourself – that’s why there is a team there in the first place. So you need to acknowledge that you are going to need help, and you’re going to need to give help too.
This means:
- Asking what your team needs and getting it for them, even if you have to work hard to do so
- Using HR software to organize the tasks in the most effective manner
- Working through problems to achieve the end result together (for example, your budget might not be enough to cover what you need to do – you will need to work as a team to resolve this)
Be Fair
If you are a manager it is likely that you are going to be ambitious, and in some cases that can mean you think about yourself and your career before anything else. This is not the way to be a good manager; a good manager is one who never puts their own ambitions over and above their team, but instead they work together to create a positive outcome.
Of course, you will still need to make potentially unpopular decisions – that’s part of the managerial role – but if you can do so fairly and show that you are being fair, you won’t lose the respect of your team.
Leverage Your Team’s Strengths
If you are a good manager you are able to look at each team member and understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. Then you can leverage those strengths to ensure that each person is doing the job that is going to be most productive. Rather than randomly handing out tasks and arbitrarily creating groups to work together, a good manager will know exactly who to pair with whom and what they should be doing to ensure success.
Be Encouraging
One of the most important tasks a manager has is to be encouraging towards their team. If someone is doing well and they aren’t acknowledged, they might not be quite so keen to continue working hard. Equally, if someone isn’t working to their best but they see that others are receiving attention and praise for their work, they might step up and do more.
Feedback is an excellent way to be encouraging while also looking at any issues that might have occurred and determining just how to resolve them in a way that doesn’t discourage the team or cause too many distractions.
