How to become a good manager?

This is generally human nature that no one likes to be managed. Everyone wants to become a manager. But not everyone is capable of handling such an important responsibility. When this duty is assigned, some use force to get the job done, while others use their intellectual thinking to achieve goals.

In an organization, a manager’s job is to manage employees and resources to achieve specified goals. So how to become a good manager?

When you become a manager, you need to understand the expected outcomes from your role. Knowing what mission and vision of your company are, will help you prepare your strategies to handle the position appropriately.

Know the manager’s role

The manager’s role is to identify and position other people so that they can produce the results required by an organization.

It includes,

• Planning
• Organizing team member’s work
• Properly assigning tasks
• Securing the resources required to achieve the goals.

Including this a manager must have the following capabilities;

• Building a good relationship with juniors and other coworkers
• Organizing the team
• Training and coaching
• Good communication skills
• Motivating team members

No two minds are alike, so wherever two or more people come together, there is the possibility of conflict. Handling conflicts effectively and positively is one of the skills required by a manager.

When you become a manager

When you become a manager, your outcome depends upon the work of employees in your team or other departments. You need to have the skills to work in an interdependent environment. So it’s not about how effectively you work, rather how efficiently your team produces the result becomes key factor for your success.

Team building becomes key factor in getting the desired resulted associated with your success.

If you think yourself in the position of a future potential manager, you have been just promoted to a manager’s role, or hired recently as a manager in an organization, first three months are crucial for your role. During this period, you start identifying what your company is looking out of your position as a manager. You start building a network with your team and other departments.

Don’t try to bring change immediately

Most of the new mangers try to make mistakes of changing policies, procedures and try to force people to accept changes which are against their daily work customs. You may do all you think appropriate, but before replacing or appending anything, you need to build an environment of trust between you and other coworkers.

To know, change is often difficult to adopt by many and may result in resistance by other employees, especially when you are lately assigned as a manager.

Just taking care of some important points may help you create a positive work environment and it will support you reach your objectives efficiently.

Believe in your abilities to achieve targets.

As a manager, your ability to believe in yourself will create an impact on your assistants. When they see your confidence, they give you more assurance with their promises and positive engagements to achieve your desired goals.

Believe that you can achieve your goals and you will achieve it.  

Learn how to handle stress

The manager is always in pressure to utilize employees and resources efficiently and get preferred quality output. Moreover, the conflict between the demands at work and family attentions and relaxation time creates additional pressure. If the pressure is not absorbed in an appropriate way, it can lead to stress. The Center for disease control and prevention (CDC), STRESS…At Work survey suggest around 40% of workers who report their job is “very or extremely stressful.”

Sometimes it is overwhelming when many employees are working under your team. Employees are responsible for their own issues whether it is a family matter or related to work. But a manager has to handle stressful situations related to self and other team members. If one employee is stressed due to family problems, it affects the team’s performance and it accumulates stress on the manager. Handling such pressure may put a manager on developing stress.  

How to handle stress at workplace is a practice that every employee and manager needs to learn.

One-on-one meetings with coworkers

A one-on-one meeting is generally an informal meeting without having any agenda. These meetings are conducted between manager and subordinate, or manager and another department manager. They give an opportunity to understand concerns, general issues or ask each other questions. It helps both the manager and employee to set the expectation from each other and have a clear understanding of tasks distribution and cooperation to achieve goals.

It is great opportunity to understand the team’s recent achievements so that you understand the team’s production competence.

Informal one-on-one, meetings help to build good relationships with each other. When meeting in person you understand the nature of an individual, you can get the best ideas of the person’s weakness and strength. This will help you build individual motivational plans respectively.

Lead by example

Focusing on self is an important part of a manager’s life. Sometimes the manager starts focusing on their team members so much that they forget their own progress areas.

By improving yourself day by day, you will have bigger control over the department’s activities too. Your own commitments will help set an example for others to follow. Notice if your actions are not just to achieve the tasks, but are in the right direction too.

Sometimes achieving numbers become so important that managers forget if they are in the right direction to achieve them.

Always align your goals with the organization’s mission statement and involve all team members to understand the mission and work in that path.

Understand the conflict between employees and resolve them

You may find some existing conflicts between employees. They may not be cooperating with each other due to their differences in pinions. It is your responsibility to bring such conflicts on the table. Remember, people often assume that conflict is always negative. This is not true!

 “Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

– Albert Einstein

People are characteristically different, and conflict simply happens when those differences come to light. Get to the root cause of the conflict. Identify and explain to employees involved the benefits of resolution of the conflict and how it can help to achieve shared goals efficiently.

Help employees learn to cooperate, collaborate and accommodate each other. Teach them the benefits of forgiving each other. This creates a strong beginning for the conflict resolution process.

Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

– William James

Creating an effective atmosphere

When people are involved in a conflict, there is typically a lot of negative energy. Anger, frustration, and disappointment are just a few of the emotions often felt. By establishing a positive atmosphere, you can begin to turn that negative energy around and create a powerful problem-solving force. This creates a strong beginning for the conflict resolution process.

Always have a positive attitude

Team members often vent their frustration to other employees, management, company, or workplace, etc. In such a situation you as a manager need to show your positive attitude. Always keep your emotions in control. Demonstrate employees, your positive position to create an effective atmosphere.

Remember, with a postive attitude, you get postive results.

While team members are generally responsible for their own actions, you as a manager are responsible for the entire team’s performance and overall achievement. You being a role model can create a decisive impact on your team members. So always show your positive attitude.

Motivate employees

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Identifying the importance of employee’s motivation can help you build a good strategy to achieve your envisioned task. Mainly, motivation is a skill to influence either yourself or another individual for success. The significance of psychology in achieving and maintaining employee motivation is essential.

Remember, a message can be repeated over and over to a group of employees but unless they believe it and believe in it, the words are empty. Because the team members are not, all the same, it is the manager’s responsibility to ensure that each employee gets the right method of motivation for being part of an inspired workforce.

Team building

Teamwork is an essential part of our daily life. Whether it’s at home, in the society, or at work, we are often anticipated to be a practical element of a team. Having a robust team will benefit any organization and will lead to more success.

The path to greatness is along with others.

– Baltasar Gracián

Remember, we are part of the interdependent environment and our achievements are depending upon other people’s input. We need to have highly configured skills to know how to get the job done from our team.

• Create an environment to build rapport
• Always help your team members to feel comfortable
• Respect their opinions even if it contradicts to your ideas
• Help team members focus on objectives
• Keep your ego aside when listening to other employee’s ideas

Remember, other team members have their egos too, handle their egos positively without damaging your relationship with them.

Critical thinking

Analyzing facts, rather than a judgement based on assumptions is important when working as a manager. It helps in making a coherent judgement based on reading information accurately. This action is non-biased. Only rational thinking can help you produce this practice. When you are angry or feeling joy, your way of thinking may affect your judgement and decisions. Having a rational thought will help you make decisions appropriately, without any bias.

In addition, a manager must have the following skills:

• Problem-solving
• Emotional Intelligence
• Decision making
• Task Delegation, etc.
  
  

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