Entries Tagged 'Credibility' ↓

First day back at work after the holiday season and I realize I’ve been slacking in terms of fresh content for DGM. This looming sense of slacker-dom has inspired me though. By neglecting my blog I was reminded about the golden rule of not neglecting your employees. It’s one of the worst things you can do. We all get pulled in a number of directions on a daily basis, but we have to remember that without our team, many of us couldn’t do the jobs we do.

Like most things, it’s all pretty logical:

Keep Them In The Loop - You don’t need to tell them every gruesome detail of every single situation, but one of the best things you can do is making it a habit to keep your team in the loop around timely events. Not only does it give people a sense of inclusion, but it’s an easy way to open the door to questions, clarification, and gives the eager ones in the group a chance to step up and be noticed if it’s a topic they’re passionate about.

Get Good At HR - There’s nothing worse than managers who are bad at following through on HR related issues. HR issues are the kind of thing that can cause mass amounts of stress, turmoil and paranoia for many employees. You don’t need to be an HR guru to be good at this stuff. As simple as it sounds, just going over and making friends with your HR counterparts makes this all a lot easier.

Communicate - Whatever you do, do your best to not be a black hole when it comes to communicating with your team members. You should make it a habit to try and manage by “walking the shop floor” and interacting with as many people as you can on any given day. Consider this your daily recon mission to gather new information and add some context to the daily activities. You’d be surprised how much useful information you can garner just by being friendly and taking a second to chat.

Follow Through - If you commit to trying to “make something happen” you better be ready to put your money where your mouth is. Nothing makes an employee feel more neglected than a manager who promises to do something and never finds the time to actually do it. On the flip side, if you do actually try and follow through, but hit a roadblock, make sure you refer back the first points above and keep your employees in the loop regarding the roadblock. An active and attentive management style tends to go a long way for many people.

At the end of the day your job as a Damn Good Manager is to facilitate awesomeness from your team and you’ll never do a truly good job of that if you have a habit of neglecting people.

How many bosses have you had in your working career? How many of those bosses were great? How many were terrible? If you are like most people, the truly great bosses and leaders tend to be vastly overshadowed by the sea of lack luster ones. On the surface this is a pretty bleak outlook on ones working career; that is until you consider how all those bad bosses can help you to become one of the few great leaders in the work force. The rule is simple - when in doubt, do the opposite of what your worst boss would have done.

It sounds almost too simple, but it really works. As a manager you’ll be challenged on a regular basis. It really can be hard to make the right decision or figure out how to motivate your team. As long as you keep those bad boss memories close at hand you’ll have a reference point to guide you through murky waters. If your bad boss had trouble making definitive decisions, make sure you try your hardest to be as definitive as possible. If your worst boss was a terrible listener, make sure you are a very conscious listener. Literally, turn all those historical criticisms into your own personal management fuel.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times this trick has come in handy for me in the last decade or so. The one thing I can say though, is that I’ve never come up short by channeling my bad boss experiences and memories into my overall management style.

A couple of weeks ago I came across an article over on FoundRead that highlighted the 7 habits of a highly effective manager. The list came from a webinar given by entrepreneur and writer Alyssa Dver.

The 7 habits of a highly effective manager are:

1. Know your limits - you don’t need to be a know it all. There is alot to be said for a manager or leader who is comfortable with their own skillset and also knows when to augment it with the skills of his/her team. Talking and “acting” above and beyond your level of knowledge can really hurt your credibility.

2. Listen before you speak - as a manager it is your job to take in all of the available “data” and make meaning of it. Don’t give your audience a reason to think you are stupid, especially if you totally miss the point of discussion because you were to busy blurting out your views to really understand the topic at hand.

3. Ask “why” not “what” - this is especially important in situations with lots of “legacy”. Many time, people and organizations will go on blindly without understanding why they do things. By asking “why” you’ll have a chance to easily jump past legacy issues and get down to details and facts. “Why” is the first step in process engineering, and as a manager, you are a major process creator.

4. Be decisive - make decisions! A leader who cannot make a decisions will lose credibility almost instantly. If you are engaged in the previously outlined habits, you should be able to make the best decisions possible with whatever amount of “data” you have.

5. Be responsive - a managers job is to manage. This means doing your best to respond to questions, issues, etc. on a regular basis. You don’t need to solve every problem on your own, and you probably shouldn’t. Deligate issues and empower your team by being attentive to their needs. Many employees will take unresponsiveness very personally.

6. Communicate frequently - keep people in the loop so they feel included and aware of the world around them. By keeping a constant flow of information available to people they are less likely to harass you with seemingly simple obvious requests. People who feel “in the loop” also tend to feel more empowered.

7. Manage passion - be excited and energized about what you and your team are doing, but don’t lose track of reality. Managing passion is a culmination of all of the above habits. In many cases passionate teams sometimes mistake their passion for execution. Don’t get blinded by your passion and ignore the need to execute efficiently.

At the end of the day, a successful manager is: “A humble leader. A careful communicator. An avid student.”