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Managers , Manage People not Tthings
Managers receive remarkably little training, given how important the role is to a team’s success and how many people managers interact with daily. In fact, the vast majority of managers end up in their jobs because they were good at something else communications or programming or operations or whatever they were doing before getting promoted.
And once there, they’re often left to figure out for themselves what good management looks like.So, it’s not surprising that managers tend to make mistakes and because of the nature of their roles, those mistakes tend to be high-impact. Here are some of the most common blunders. Do these sound familiar?
How important is it to help managers succeed? Beyond description. Managers and how they manage their reporting staff set the tone for your entire business operation. Managers are the front line representation of your business.
The majority of communication about the business is funneled through your managers. When employees resign, the top reason for their resignation is their relationship with their manager. People leave managers, not jobs or employers.
Sselect managers for managing people
In a job description for a manager, core job functions, traits, and abilities are listed. With this as a guide, manager selection should focus on both the management skills and the candidate's' cultural fit. Within the cultural fit component of your interview and selection process, a candidate for a manager position must demonstrate that he or she has beliefs, values, and a work style that are congruent with those of your organization.
In a people-oriented, forward-looking organization, you'll want to select managers who exhibit these characteristics.
- Value people
- Believe in two-way, frequent effective communication and listening
- Want to create an environment in which employees are empowered to take charge of their jobs
- Able to hold people accountable and responsible without punitive measures
- Demonstrate leadership and clear direction Believe in teamwork
With all of this in mind about managers, preventing management mistakes and dumb decisions is paramount for a successful organization.
Do you want to become a better manager?
Here are the managing mistakes you most want to notice, prevent, and avoid.
Fail to get to know employees as people
Developing a relationship with reporting employees is a key factor in managing. You don't want to be your employees' divorce counselor or therapist, but you do want to know what's happening in their lives. When you know where the employee is going on vacation or that his kids play soccer, you are taking a healthy interest in your employees' lives.Knowing employees will make you a better manager, a manager who is more responsive to employee needs, moods, and life cycle events.
Fail to provide clear direction
Managers fail to create standards and give people clear expectations so they know what they are supposed to do, and wonder why they fail. If you make every task a priority, people will soon believe that there are no priorities. More importantly, they will never feel as if they have accomplished a complete task or goal.
Within your clear expectations, if you are either too rigid or too flexible, your reporting employees will feel rudderless. You need to achieve an appropriate balance that allows you to lead employees and provide direction without dictating and destroying employee empowerment and employee engagement.
Fail to trust
When managers don't trust people to do their jobs, this lack of trust plays out in a number of injurious ways. Micromanaging is one example. Constant checking up is another. Treat people as if they are untrustworthy - watch them, track them, admonish them for every slight failing - because a few people are untrustworthy. Are you familiar with the old tenet that people live up to your expectations?
Fail to listen to and help employees feel that their opinions are valued
Active listening is a critical management skill. You can train managers in listening skills but if the manager believes that listening is a way to demonstrate that he or she values people, training is usually unnecessary. Listening is providing recognition and demonstrating your values in action. When employees feel heard out and listened to, they feel important and respected. You will have much more information when you daily open the floodgates.
Make decisions and then ask people for their input as if their feedback mattered
You can fool some of the people but your best employees soon get the nature of your game and drop out. Along the same lines, create hierarchical permission steps and other roadblocks that teach people quickly that their ideas are subject to veto and wonder why no one has any suggestions for improvement. Enabling people to make decisions about their work is the heart of employee empowerment and the soul of employee engagement. Don't throttle them.
Hypocritical behaviour
Nothing will sour relationships faster than when a manager or executive is able to operate under a different set of rules than the rest of the team. If you make policies that apply to everyone in the company, then they should apply all the way up the chain to the highest-level employees.
Fail to react to problems and issues that will soon fester if ignored
Managers have a habit of hoping that an uncomfortable issue, employee conflict or disagreement will just go away on its own if they don't provoke it or try to resolve it. Trust me. It won't. Issues, especially among people, just get worse unless something in the mix changes.
Proactive intervention from the manager to coach and mentor, or to make sure employees have the skills necessary to resolve the issue, is imperative. Drama and hysteria do interrupt productivity, motivation, and employee engagement.
Trying to be friends with employees who report to you
You can develop warm and supportive relationships with employees who report to you. But, you will have difficulty separating the reporting relationship in a friendship. Friends gossip, go out together and complain about work and the boss. There is no room for their manager in these kinds of relationships.
Fail to communicate effectively withhold important information
The best communication is transparent communication. Sure, some information is company confidential. You may have been asked to keep certain information under wraps for a while, but aside from these rare occasions, share what you know.
Being a member of the in-crowd is a goal for most employees and the in-crowd has information - all of the information needed to make good decisions. Ask for feedback, too. Ask people for their opinions, ideas, and continuous improvement suggestions, and if you fail to implement their suggestions, let them know why, or empower them to implement their ideas themselves.
Not treating employees equally
You don't necessarily have to treat every employee the same, but they must feel as if they receive equal treatment. The perception that you have pet employees or that you play favorites will undermine your efforts to manage people.
This goes hand-in-hand with why befriending reporting employees is a bad idea. Employees who are not in your inner circle will always believe that you favor the employees who are - whether you do or not. This perception destroys teamwork and undermines productivity and success.
Throw employees under the bus
Rather than taking responsibility for what goes wrong in the areas that you manage, blame particular employees when asked or confronted by executive leadership. When you know the responsibility is ultimately yours if you are the boss, why not act with dignity and protect your employees?
When you blame employees, you look like an idiot and your employees will disrespect and hate you. Trust me. They will find out and they will never trust you again. They'll always be waiting for the other shoe to fall. Worst ? They'll tell all of their employee friends about what you did. Your other staff members will then distrust you, too.
Your senior managers will not respect you either. They will question whether you are capable of doing the job and leading the team. When you throw your employees under the bus, you jeopardize your career - not theirs. And, it won't remove one iota of the blame from your shoulders.
Sources :
The Author : Ahmed Farghaly
About :
Twenty-Three years of Production & Process Operations Troubleshooting hands-on experience in Gas Processing,LNG,LPG & NGL recovery and Ethylene Cryogenic plants, Shared in six Megaprojects Detailed Engineering, Pre-Commissioning,Commissioning and Successful initial Start-ups until Normal Operations.Leading the operational readiness assurance for three LNG Megaprojects from Pre-feasibility Studies, Concept Selection,Definition,Tendering ,Bid evaluation,value engineering and Execution phases until Handover.
Subject-Matter Expert
LNG/Petrochemicals/Set Up Operations Management System&Team/Pre-Commissioning, Commissioning,Initial Start-Up/Competency Management/Project Management/Scheduling/Project Controlling/Process Modelling/Revamp/De-bottle-necking/Green and Brownfield Development/Shared in set up of PSM,ERP,RBI,CMMS,RAM and RCM systems/Process Modifications Optimization,Plant Performance Monitoring/Shutdown Planning/Annual Turnaround/Tackling Plant Emergencies/Competency Profiling/Recruitment/Total Plant Safety/Abilities Of Trouble-Free Communication /Handling Megaproject labour force tactfully in working area.
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