news

stay ahead with
logo

The First of 4 Essential Habits of Effective Managers

Get Great Results From Your Team!

Effective managers don’t have a great relationship with their team. They have excellent relationships with individuals on their team.

No two employees are the same, and a “one size fits all” management approach is grossly ineffective.

Each employee works at a different pace, and will have different requirements regarding reporting and accountability. When given an objective some people are wired to get results, while others work more slowly and need a plan to achieve the same outcome.

Unless you know your employees and which management style they respond best to, it is difficult to manage them effectively.

There are four essential habits of effective managers which save businesses time and money, build excellent relationships in the workplace, and improve team effectiveness. The most effective managers:

1. Know their people exceptionally well,
2. Constantly talk to them about their performance,
3. Continually ask for more performance, and
4. Delegate exceptionally well.

Let’s look at each in turn.

1.         Know Your Staff Exceptionally Well

The most important strategy to get to know your team is having weekly one-on-one meetings with each of your direct reports. The purpose of the one-on-one meeting is communication. The outcome is excellent relationships and improved effectiveness.

The One-On-One: How?

Allow 30 minutes. Ensure you are somewhere you won’t be distracted or interrupted. Turn off your phone.

For the first 15 minutes the focus is on the employee. You could start by saying, “It’s your agenda – how’s things? What’s going on for you?”  Whatever the employee chooses to talk about, listen, take notes, and butt out!

Now it’s your 15 minutes…

Share: You could start by saying “Here’s what’s going on for me…”. Talk about anything you’d like to share, whether it be personal or business.

Give some genuine feedback: Here’s an example: “Sam, can I share something with you? When you turn up to work each day and greet everyone in such a friendly way, it really improves the morale of the whole team. Thank you. Keep it up.”

Ask for information about their work: Use questions such as, “Tell me about what you’re working on”, “Tell me about your week”,
“Please update me on the project”,
“How do you think I can help you with that?”, and “What resources do you need?”

Keep notes of each meeting and ensure to follow up if required. The first few one-on-ones may be uneventful, but keep going. Relationships are built over time, not in one meeting.

Next week we will outline habit number two, “How to give feedback to your team”.

Posted by Andrew, 7/3/13