New managers and would be managers need to develop a suitable mindset. This is very important for becoming an effective and exceptional manager. Managers have different styles, different levels of experience and different levels of adequacy. Applying the concepts discussed here will enable a manager to perform efficiently and productively. A great manager has several positive attributes that include:
Goal driven: A great manager knows where he is going and how to take along the team without the need to push and shove.
Results focused: Success must be measured. The results are tangible, provided in black and white. A great manager takes time to consider the outcomes and the meaning of the results, and adjusts and rewards accordingly.
Effective communicator: A great manager knows which style to adopt for each individual scenario. He tailors his communication and management style to get the best out of the individuals within their team as well as doing what is best for the business.
Responsive: A great manager is responsive to others needs, not in a knee jerk manner, but in a calm, thought -through and timely manner.
Balanced: A great manager knows how to apply the Law of Balance to all aspects of their working (and personal) life, and works with their team to assign and support balance.
Transparency: A great manager understands there are areas of business that he is unable to share: HR related, bonuses, salaries etc. With the areas that can be shared, they are open an honest and share them with all of the team where applicable.
Fairness: A great manager will treat each member of the team fairly as individual, without favoritism.
Trustworthy: A great manager will be honest with good news and feedback as well as constructive criticism. The team will know that the manager is true to his words.
Approachable: The good manager will give team members the confidence to approach with issues and solutions, knowing they will be listened to.
Learning environment: A great manager will create a learning environment with calculated risks. The team will be allowed to work within agreed parameters and learn from their mistakes without fear of blame.
As a manager, you will have many resources to manage: people, budget, equipment, time etc. You: your attitude, your behavior and your skill set to deliver the outcomes. These are the three key components to the positive mindset. With a positive attitude you will be able to recognize obstacles as challenges rather than allowing them to be the finishing line. You can look beyond what may be in your way and see your possibilities. Learning from mistakes and demonstrating those learnings will give you a sense of accomplishment. One way of carrying this out is to prove you will not repeat the same mistake. Another is to implement processes to ensure the same mistake doesn’t happen again
Energy levels are managed through positive thoughts, healthy eating and exercise. Within all three choices you have options either to build your energy or deplete it. To manage successfully you will need energy. One of the manager’s most supportive resources is his engagement with a mentor or coach. Sustaining your energy, productivity and motivation will often lead to further career opportunities.
If you were to ask people around you why they work, the most probable initial reaction will be “for the money”. For most of them, though, this is not really the case. Money is important; it is just not the most important driver. The driver is often something more inspiring: career change, career progression, personal challenge, learning experience. Consider the compelling reasons why you want to be a great manager. Your why’s will change over time and your list of reasons will grow.
It is impossible to manage an effective and efficient team if the manager takes no time to develop himself. It is imperative as a manager that you understand who you are and where you are going. In order to move forward, you must respect on the past, have clear goals to work towards, and understand where you are today and where you want to be. Until you have clarity on where you are and where you want to be, it is impossible to gauge how to bridge the gap between the two places.
Attitude: Your attitude alone will not determine your success; there is also a need to follow through with behavior. However without the right attitude, success will elude you. Attitude will be a key definer in your reputation and brand. As you progress through life and your career, you will be required to realign your attitude to your role. Your attitude is formed directly from your frame of reference, based on perceived past experiences. You can choose fight, flight or freeze or even to change the goal. Flight is the easy option: you decide not to continue with the goal and walk (or run) away from it. Fight is facing your fear and doing it anyway. Freeze is to continue to persecute yourself with “I should be doing this” and staring at it with no action. It is important as a new manager that you take responsibility and make decisions. Therefore, if you are someone who generally shies away from making decisions, now is the time to breathe and put your best foot forward. This may feel alien to you but it is a must in any management role regard- less of whether you are a junior or on your way through to the Chief Executive’s position.
Behavior: Having the right attitude without the behavior is the same as having a great looking car without the engine. It will not drive you anywhere. You need the behavior to execute your goals. You need the behavior to choose fight over flight or freeze. Behavior and skill set are very different. A skill set can be defined as a collection of learnt skills, e.g. finance, HR, communication, time management, etc. Behavior is physical demonstration, the doing. Behavior is fundamental to success. It goes hand in hand with attitude and is very much complemented with skill set. All three need to be congruent in order to deliver. Reactive is a must, and it is better to be reactive than non-active, but in an ideal world you will be working 80% proactively and 20% reactively. Reality shows that manager tend to work 20% proactively and 80% reactively.
Team: Managing a team can be a full time job in itself, and in the real world, as a manager you will have other roles and responsibilities to carry out as well as managing your team. In order to get the best from your team, you need to gain an understanding of what motivates them, how you build a greater team, and then maintain the team’s motivation and productivity. The key to a productive, motivated and efficient team is knowing them on an individual level: their strengths and weaknesses, what they like and do not like, their hobbies etc. It is about understanding what motivates them as individuals and what motivates them as a team; understanding the individuals why. Great managers know how to engage their team. They know how to get the best from the team.
Task Management: One of the first areas one needs to ensure as a manager is that the resources are being used effectively and efficiently. This can be carried out through auditing the tasks and processes and dealing directly with the customers, all with the input of your team. Arrange meetings with your customers to discuss the suggested changes formally. During these audit meetings it is crucial to discuss all the options available. Never disappoint your customer or stress out your staff with unfeasible deadlines. A rule of thumb, when setting deadlines with customers is to under-promise and over-deliver. If I believe that something will take me three days, I will say to the customer that I will get it to them at the end of day five. When I deliver at the end of day three or during day four, the customer is delighted.
Skillset: Unless you’re in a repetitive or highly processed role, your job will holistically grow as time goes on, and your skill sets will progress with those changes. If your skill set does not change, you will be left behind in the job. Along with your knowledge of what is required to carry out your job successfully, the three top skill sets as communication, self-management and team management. Empires have been built or razed to the ground because of good or bad communication. Communication is vital to your success as a manager or someone who is working towards a management role. In fact, great communication is vital for all parts of life, regardless of role. You will, in your life as a manager, be required to ‘clean up” team problems both internally and externally. Being a great communicator will take you 75% of the way there. The other 25% is a mix of understanding and delivery. There are three behavioral types: submissive, assertive and aggressive. Delivery of these and the management styles will be crucial to success.
Goal Setting: Now is the time to take action. Let’s get in the correct frame of mind-change attitudes, demonstrate with action, influence, behavior and deliver each and every time. “Don’t work harder, work smarter” is how the saying goes. The problem with this is that a lot of managers don’t know how to “work smarter”. And when you talk about being smart to manager, they often think “SMART ” goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Many new managers want to make a good impression and as a result often take on more than they can handle. This leads to problems: either they are unable to deliver or are working all the hours possible to deliver on their promises. Or they may underestimate the time taken to complete a request and therefore miss deadlines. There is a danger that they will damage their relationship with the recipient and their own reputation, and get stressed whilst this is happening.
Time Management: Time management as a phrase should be deleted from your vocabulary; it is after all, self-management. “You have exactly the same amount of hours, minutes and seconds in the day as everyone else.” It does not matter who you are , where you are, what you believe, what you think, you still have the same amount of days in a week, hours in a day, minutes in a hour and seconds in a minute as everyone else. There you go, the secret is out there. You will have met individuals who work late into the evening and all weekend and then complain, “I haven’t seen the children, partner, friends, family, etc. Some feel they have to work late: the company culture dictates it, promotion depends on it, income depends on it, and so forth. This is true of males and females, with or without children. Let’s be honest about the whole work-life balance concept. It is a great theory, but for most it is just that- a theory or concept and not real life.
One of the greatest forces working against you is time or more importantly, your self –management and how realistic you are with fitting everything into your day. There is the same amount of time for everyone; it’s just a matter of being focused. Stop thinking of the ideal worlds; start working towards your real world. Part of that is giving serious thought to your work-life balance, and remembering taking something on does mean that you give something up. It is what you choose to give up that is the tough part.
Procrastination: Procrastination is like an illness, eating away at your energy bit by bit whilst starting to gnaw at your confidence. It gives you the time to think of the many reasons why you should not be dealing with something, or why you are unable to deal with it. Procrastination gives you barriers and justifications not to start a task, and it also gives you a bad reputation. When this happens, negativity takes control. Their mindset shifts from the Step-up mindset to whining, ‘Bad things always happen to me”.
A manager who procrastinates demotivates their team. Just as bad is a manager who doesn’t have the confidence or the time to address procrastinators within his or her team. Procrastination can be an infectious illness with the team and can drain it of any energy, want or will it may have had.
Delegation: It is a priority for new managers to start implementing and feeling comfortable with delegation. There aren’t many new managers in existence who particularly enjoy delegation. Most find it a hard pill to swallow. This can be due to the fact that they don’t know how to delegate, and this is the same for some more senior managers. They feel that by delegating they are giving up their power to others. Good managers work towards making themselves redundant from their role, and this is mainly achieved through great delegation. Delegation is not about giving up control. It’s not about handing over your power to another or giving up responsibility or ownership. Delegation is about sharing the workload, challenging and growing your team, freeing up your time to manage, showing the team that you trust them and allowing you to assess strengths and areas that require improvement.
Daily to Do Lists: To do lists are great for moving all the things that need to be carried out from your head on to paper. This leaves room for you to think through how you are going to carry them out, or for those of you who like to worry, it gives you space to fill with other things.
Disciplined: If you are disciplined with your time and that of your team, you will find that productivity of both you and your team will increase greatly, Not only that stress levels will decrease, confidence will grow. You as well your department’s reputation will grow. Managing time stealer, kicking procrastination’s butt, and delegating will lead to a more proficient mindset.
Admin, Wealthio.
